





o 




o°* 


'■< *fe 


0* 












•%. 




& 




tJ 



^ ^ 
















- 



o o v 




% ^ ^ : 
















i 



MAP N0.5 



)R R USSIANS 

SLAVERY. CONSPIRACIES FREQUENT. 
-U/O/VS A MONCST SLA V£S . 

\ 






THE 



PAST AND FUTURE 



HUNGARY: 



FACTS, FIGURES, AND DATES, 



ILLUSTRATIVE OF ITS 



PAST STRUGGLE, AND FUTURE PROSPECTS. 



^/ BY 

C. R HENNINGSEN, ESQ., 

SECRETARY TO GOVERNOR LOUIS KOSSUTH, AUTHOR OF "TWELVE MONTHS' 

CAMPAIGN WITH ZUMALACARREGUI," "REVELATIONS OF 

RUSSIA," " EASTERN EUROPE," ETC. 



LONDON: 

T. C. NEWBY, PUBLISHER, 

30, WELBECK STREET, CAVENDISH SQUARE. 

1852. 



THE 

PAST AND FUTUBE 



OF 



HUNGARY. 



HUNGARY AND THE RACES IN- 
HABITING IT. 

The Magyars bearing the same proportion to 
the other races, as the Anglo-Saxons, in 
the United States, to the remainder of the 
population. 

Hungary is a country about three hundred 
and twenty miles in breadth, from north to 
south, and some five hundred from its 
eastern to its western extremity. It is com- 
puted to comprise about one hundred and 

B 



S THE PAST AND FUTURE 

twenty thousand square miles, being rather 
larger than Great Britain and Ireland, and 
extending over about the same area as the 
states of New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. 
It is naturally bounded and defended, on 
the north and east, by the Carpathian moun- 
tains, and on the south by the Danube and 
the Save, a tributary river. The Danube 
and the Theiss, which flow into it, traverse 
the great central plains of Hungary. The 
northern section of the country is mountain- 
ous, and Transylvania, a mountainous pro- 
vince, it will be perceived by reference to 
map No 1, is literally fenced in by a wall of 
mountains. 

Climate, fertility of soil, irrigation, variety 
of surface, and mineral wealth, render this 
region, naturally, the most favoured on the 
continent of Europe. Its great arterial 
rivers, level plains, and mountain chains, 



OF HUNGARY. 3 

traversed by streams, invite steam naviga- 
tion and the construction of railroads and 
canals. Every variety of European product, 
from wheat and rye to maize and rice, are 
produced in great luxuriance ; and Hungary 
has no rival on the continent for its horses, 
cattle, and tobacco, or westward of the 
Rhine — if any where — for its wines. 

To Europe, it is what the most fruitful 
parts of the great valley of the Mississippi 
are to the North American continent. 

This territory is inhabited by about fifteen 
millions of inhabitants. Of these, about 
seven millions, or nearly half, belong to the 
Magyar race, the remainder being made up 
of Slovacks, Ruthenians, Serbians, Croats, 
Sclavonians, Wallacks, Germans, Jews, Gip- 
sies, Greeks, and Armenians. None of 
these other nationalities number indivi- 
dually over two millions and three quarters ; 

b 2 



4 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

some only amount to a few thousand, and 
they all differ from each other in origin, 
language, habits, or religion. 

Many attempts have been made by the 
Austrian government and its partizans to 
misrepresent these facts. The number of 
the Magyars has, for instance, been officially 
given as 5,400,000. It is a common prac- 
tice also in enumerating the different races, 
to place the Magyars on one side, and to 
sum up the Szeklers, who are rather more 
Magyar than the Magyars themselves, with 
the remainder of the population. This can 
only be compared to a census for the pur- 
pose of establishing the relative numbers of 
the white and coloured population in the 
United States, and which should report 
the whites at so many, the blacks at so 
many, and the population of Ohio or Penn- 
sylvania at so many more, from whence an 



OF HUNGARY. 5 

ignorant reader in Europe would naturally 
deduce that the people of Pennsylvania or 
Ohio were not white. Secondly, the Slo- 
vacks, Croats, Ruthenians, Serbs, and Scla- 
vonians are spoken of collectively as Sclaves 
or Sclavonians, and computed collectively at 
five millions, as if they constituted one 
people. Now, for this there is no other 
foundation than the fact of their belonging, in 
common, to the Sclavonic family. With very 
few exceptions, the European nations may be 
divided into three great families ; that is to 
say, the Germanic, the Latin, and Sclavonic. 
The English, Germans, Swedes, Danes, Swiss, 
Norwegians, Dutch, and Flemings belong, 
for instance, to the Germanic family. The 
French, Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, and 
Wallachians to the Latin family. The Poles, 
Russians, Cossacks, Slovacks, Serbians, 
Croates, Bohemians, Bulgarians, Bosniaks, 
and Montenegrins to the Sclavonic families. 



4» 

6 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

It does not follow that the members of 
each family should have much, or, in some 
cases, any affinity beyond that of language ; 
and this affinity, although decided, is not 
sufficient to render them intelligible to one 
another. For instance, an Englishman, or 
American, can not understand a German ; 
an Italian can not understand a Frenchman, 
nor a Hungarian Slovack, a Hungarian Serb. 
The proverbial hatred of a Pole to a Rus- 
sian, and of a Spaniard to a Frenchman, 
affords a popularly recognised exemplifica- 
tion of the failure of a mere assimilation of 
language in securing harmony between the 
individual nations classified in one family. 
So it is with the Sclavonic races inhabiting 
Hungary. The Slovacks, for instance, are 
frequently Catholic or Protestant, and ad- 
here closely to the Magyars. When a 
Slovack is well to do in the world, he brings 



OF HUNGARY. 7 

his children up to learn the Magyar tongue, 
and calls himself a Magyar. 

The returns of the census for 1850, made 
by the Austrian government, gave eight mil- 
lions of Magyars for Hungary ; and it was 
not, as originally proposed, made over again, 
because it was feared that, instead of eight, 
nine millions would be the result. The fact 
was, that the Slovacks set themselves down 
as Magyars. The Ruthenians, a little Rus- 
sian or Cossack race, belong to the united 
Greek rite ; that is to say, to a sect of the 
Greek Church, who permit their priests to 
marry, and use leavened bread and wine for 
the celebration of the mass, but who recog- 
nize and are recognized by the Pope of 
Rome. They belong to the same sect which 
the Emperor Nicholas so barbarously per- 
secuted in the provinces of Russian Poland. 
The Croatians, who will not fraternize with 



•A> 



8 THE PAST AND FUTURE 



either of these branches, and with whom 
these branches will not fraternize, are very 
bigoted Roman Catholics, in whose country 
no Protestant is ever allowed to settle or hold 
property. The Serbians and Sclavonians— 
the latter, so called from inhabiting a pro- 
vince of that name — are mostly members of 
the pure Greek Church, and, as such, look 
with great aversion on their Croatian neigh- 
bours. The Wallacks appertain to the pure 
Greek Church, but belong to the Latin 
family, their language being a corruption of 
the Italian, and no more like any Sclavonian 
tongue than the English to the Greek. 

Magyars and Szeklers . . 6,500,000 to 7,500,000 
Slovacks and Ruthenians. 2,500,000 to 3,000,000 

Serbians 900,000 

Croats and Sclavonians . . 800,000 

Wallacks 2,000,000 

Germans 1,000,000 

Jews, Gipsies, Greeks, Ar- 
menians, and Albanians 500,000 



OF HUNGARY. i) 

It will be observed that the Magyar race 
is not only — even according to the Austrian 
census — more numerous than any other, but 
more numerous than all the Sclavonic races 
put together. 

The Magyar race, in fact, constitutes quite 
as predominant an element in Hungary as 
the Anglo-Saxon in the states of the Ame- 
rican Union, if a deduction of the French, 
Germans, Celts, Indians, &c, be made. 



b 3% 



10 THE PAST AND FUTURE 



ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE 
MAGYARS. 

The Magyars for a century and a half the 
bulwark of Christendom against the Turks, 
Their King being killed in battle, elect 
the Austrian Emperors, on condition of 
maintaining the constitution. Bad faith 
of the Emperors, encroachments on the 
liberties of the Magyars, and religious 
persecution rouse champions, who succes- 
sively drive the Austrians out of Hungary. 
The House of Hapsburg appealing to Hun- 
gary in its need, and again oppressing it. 

This Magyar race bears no relation to the 
Germanic, Latin, or Sclavonic families, nor 
has its language any resemblance whatever 
to their idiom. The Magyars are an 



OP HUNGARY. 11 

Asiatic people, isolated in the heart of 
Europe, but without kindred, unless it be 
among the Turks, or among the Basques, 
inhabiting the Western Pyrenees, and isola- 
ted among strange races like themselves ; 
with the Turks similitude of language seems 
to connect, and, with the Basques, is alleged 
to connect them. If so, it is a further 
coincidence that both Basques and Magyars 
have been distinguished by a jealous ad- 
herence to the principle of local self-govern- 
ment, and that that one people has made, 
against overwhelming numbers, in a moun- 
tain region, the other in a plain country, the 
most remarkable stand recorded in our 
times. 

The Magyars are supposed to owe their 
origin either to the Huns, one of the great 
predatory nations who over-ran the Roman 
Empire in its decline, or to be descended 



12 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

from a conquering tribe of that people, 
which afterwards, under Arpad, immigrated 
into Europe. 

The Magyars framed for themselves a 
constitution about the same period that the 
English Barons extorted the Magna Charta 
from King John, and from that period have 
always enjoyed, watchfully guarded or 
courageously defended, a certain amount of 
practical self-government. 

As an independent Kingdom, Hungary 
for more than a century and a half was the 
bulwark of Christendom against the inva- 
sions of the Turks. That is to sav, that, 
out of a dozen battles won by the Christians 
against the Musselmen, eight were fought 
by the Hungarians, and that the historic 
honours, justly paid to the Polish King 
Sobeiski, for once saving central Europe 
from a Turkish inroad, were due to the 



OF HUNGARY. 



13 



Magyars during one hundred and seventy 
years. 

From the battle of Kossova, in 1389, 
where the Hungarians first came in contact 
with the Ottomans, to the fatal field of 
Mohacz, one Turkish Sultan and two Hun- 
garian Kings perished in battle, in the 
fierce wars waged, alternately and with vary- 
ing success, on Turkish or Hungarian ter- 
ritory. 

King Sigismond, Hunniades, Matthias 
Corvinus, Paul Kinnis, and Bathory, the 
heroes of these conflicts, succeeded in re- 
sisting the Mahommedan inroad, thereby 
securing Europe from molestation. 

Even after King Louis fell, with the flower 
of his nobility, at Mohacz, against Solyman 
the Magnificent, the Turkish armies were 
obliged to evacuate the country. It was 
only after the Hungarians had, in 1527, in 



14 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

consequence of this untoward event, elected 
as their King the Emperor Ferdinand of 
Austria, brother-in-law of King Louis, who 
had died without male issue, that Hungary 
fell wholly or partially under Ottoman rule 
or protectorate for one hundred and fifty 
years. 

Ferdinand the First, of Hapsburg, Em- 
peror of Germany, was elected King of Hun- 
gary in 1587, on condition of his respecting 
the rights and privileges of the nation. It 
was not until 1687 that the crown of Hun- 
gary was made hereditary in the male line 
of the House of Hapsburg, and it was not 
until the reign of Charles the Sixth in 1723, 
that the female succession was conceded, 
and shortly after accepted in the person of 
Maria Theresa. 

The crown of Hungary had, therefore, 
been conferred by free choice on the Princes 



OF HUNGARY. 15 

of the House of Hapsburg, who stood in 
the same relation to it as the absolute sove- 
reigns of Hanover to the throne of Constitu- 
tional England. These Princes, though 
Emperors of Germany, and afterwards styled 
Emperors of Austria, were never recognized 
but as Kings of Hungary. 

From the period of this unhappy choice 
to the present, during nearly three hundred 
years, the history of Hungary has been one 
continued series of perfidious attempts on 
the part of the perjured sovereigns of 
Austria to ravish or to filch, by force or 
fraud, the civil and religious liberties of 
their Hungarian subjects, on whose part is 
presented, on the other hand, a picture of 
credulity and forgiveness, which only the 
spirited nature of their resistance to op- 
pression and encroachment has redeemed. 

It has been said already that Hungary, 



16 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

which, before the election of the House of 
Hapsburg, knew how to protect its soil from 
Turkish invasion, remained after that event, 
for more than a century and a half, wholly 
or chiefly in possession of the Turks. 

The fact was that the persecution of 
Austria and its machiavelian policy not only 
neutralised the power of the nation by divi- 
ding it, but drove its patriots to seek, under 
the more tolerant protectorate of Turkey, 
that religious liberty, and the free exercise 
of those civil rights which the Austrian rule 
was unceasingly exerted to subvert, 

The insurgent leaders who arose to assert 
these liberties were usually successful in 
obliging Austria to withdraw, until a more 
favourable season, her pretensions, and the 
nation, or at least a large portion of it, re- 
turned again to its allegiance whenever this 
pressure was removed. Some of these 



OE HUNGARY. 17 

leaders carried their arms victoriously into 
the hereditary States of Austria, some of 
them expelled the Austrians from the country 
and kept possession of it, or of parts of it, 
during the whole term of their natural lives. 
Others died in exile or upon the field, but 
the names of all have been handed down to 
popular veneration. 

It is worthy of remark, that they were 
indifferently Catholics or Protestants who 
led, at various times, the struggle for liberty 
of conscience against the persecution of 
Austria, one of whose princes, Ferdinand the 
Second, sold two hundred and fifty Pro- 
testant clergymen, for fifty dollars each, to 
the Neapolitan galleys, whence they were 
ransomed by the great Dutch Admiral, De 
Ruyter. 

Moses Szekeli swept the Austrians before 
him in Transylvania till slain in battle by 



18 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

the Turkish mercenaries which Austria had 
hired. 

Botskay, after in vain pleading at the 
Austrian court, drove the Austrians out of 
Hungary, and retained possession till his 
death. 

Bethlen Gabor took Pressburgh by as- 
sault, attacked the Austrians on their own 
territory and compelled the Emperor to sign 
a treaty with him for twenty years. 

Leopold the First, having attempted to 
reign as an absolute sovereign in Hungary* 
Emeric Tokolyi pushed on to the gates of 
Vienna, obliged the Emperor to retract his 
pretensions, and was finally put down only 
by the aid of John Sobeiski. 

Subsequently, in 1703, on the occasion of 
a fresh religious persecution, Francis Leo- 
pold Rakoczy expelled the Austrians from 
Hungary, till the Duke of Marlborough's 



OF HUNGARY. 19 

victories, having left Austria all her dis- 
posable and many auxiliary forces, the in- 
surrection was suppressed, and like Tokolyi 
his predecessor, Rakoczy died an exile upon 
Turkish ground, and was buried in the 
cemetery of Pera, whence his tomb still 
overlooks the Bosphorus. 

Forgiving and loyal when an appeal to 
their fidelity or loyalty was made, as spirit- 
ed in resisting an infringement of their 
privileges, the Hungarians were ever con- 
ciliated by the House of Hapsburg, in its 
need, by concessions which were always 
perjuriously and ungratefully revoked when 
the necessities of the hour had passed away. 

The celebrated Maria Theresa, when 
driven to the last extremity, threw herself, 
with her infant son, into the arms of her 
Hungarian subjects, who re-established her 
fortunes, and that son, the Emperor Joseph 



20 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

the Second, afterwards repaid them by en- 
deavouring to overturn their constitution, 
till forced by the revolted Hungarians to 
desist. From that time forward, until 
1848, the House of Austria abandoned the 
policy of force, to adopt, perseveringly, the 
more successful policy of intrigue and fraud, 
by which the progress of the nation was 
impeded and many of its rights insidiously 
filched away. 



OP HUNGARY. 21 



NOBILITY AND SERFDOM MATTERS 
OF CASTE, AND NOT OF RACE. 

Nobles only any share in representation, 
Russian peasants, slaves. Peasantry of 
Austrian Poland in a stringent state of 
serfdom. Hungarian peasants in a miti- 
gated form of serfdom — Illusory nature of 
pretended laws by Russia and Austria for 
their relief — Real opposition to their 
emancipation. 

Previous to 1848, the population of Hun- 
gary consisted of half a million of nobles. 
Of these nobles a few hundred families were 
magnates, with princely fortunes and pecu- 
liar privileges ; the others were rather free- 
men, in the enjoyment of political rights 
denied to other classes of community than 
nobles. 



22 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

Of the remaining inhabitants a large por- 
tion were serfs, but serfs in a very miti- 
gated form of serfdom. 

The term serf has been frequently mis- 
applied. In Russia, for instance, the great 
bulk of the population are slaves, and not 
serfs, although it has cost Russian diplo- 
macy great expenditure and pains to get 
the term of serf, instead of slave, adopted or 
applied to her peasantry in foreign countries. 
The Russian peasant, and in the same man- 
ner the peasant of Russian Poland, could, 
in fact, a few years back, be sold without 
any reference to the estate to which he 
belonged, and though a ukase has since 
been issued prohibiting their sale without 
the estate to which they are attached, yet, 
practically, a slave is sold to be taken to 
the most remote part of the empire, the 
purchaser receiving with his purchase the 



OF HUNGARY. 23 

conveyance of a few worthless or imaginary 
acres to iavade the law. By law the master 
has, only in certain localities remote from a 
police station, the right to chastise his slave, 
male or female, but for a few shillings the 
police, who are bound to punish them on 
his demand, will inflict any number of thou- 
sand lashes. 

In Austrian Poland, otherwise called Gal- 
icia, the peasantry are in a stringent state 
of serfdom. A law, illusory as are most of 
the laws of despotism humane in their 
tendency — the celebrated urbarium of Maria 
Theresa — has long since nominally detached 
him from the soil, and given him the pri- 
vilege of going where he pleases whenever 
he has paid up the debt of forced labour he 
owes his master. But as the Galician serf 
is obliged to give, besides other dues, one 
hundred and fifty days labour as rental for 



24 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

fifteen acres of land, to his master, and as 
these days may be chosen by that master in 
sowing or in harvest time, it follows that 
the peasant is always hopelessly indebted 
to his landlord to an extent no human in- 
dustry can liquidate. 

In Hungary, where a mitigated form of 
serfdom existed, the peasant was bound 
down to the same conditions, but with this 
practical difference, that the proportion of 
his labour due to the landlord — that is to 
say, fifty-four days — for thirty acres of land, 
was such as industry might enable him to 
perform, in which case he was at liberty to 
remove at his discretion. 

These distinctions were, however, distinc- 
tions of class, and not of race. Of the half 
million nobles of Hungary, not more than 
three hundred and fifty thousand were 
Magyars, the remainder belonging indis- 



OF HUNGARY. 25 

criminately to the other populations, and 
not only were there German, Croatian, Wal- 
lachian, and Serbian landlords, but Magyar 
peasantry who belonged to them. 

It is true that the Magyars had a larger 
proportion of nobles than the other races, 
but this is naturally enough accounted for, 
when it is remembered that the Serbians 
and a large proportion of Wallachians were 
originally fugitives from Turkey, during the 
contest of their respective nations with that 
country, who came to seek refuge in Hun- 
gary, and to whom the Magyars would 
extend rather a protective hospitality than 
political rights. 

It has been the policy of Russia, and of 
Austria, to uphold the systems of slavery 
and of serfdom as a means of security to 
their rule, by enabling them to play off the 
interests of the slaves, serfs, slave-owners, 



26 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

and serf landlords reciprocally against each 
other. 

The slave-owners and landlords in these 
countries were made the medium through 
which the government levied men and 
money on the peasantry, with whom their 
proprietors incurred the chief share of the 
odium attendant on the tax. The interests 
of the proprietors became identified with 
those of the government in keeping down 
the peasantry, and if the proprietors or 
landlords made any resistance to oppression, 
they were threatened with a rising of the 
slaves or serfs. 

A consciousness of the dangers of their 
position, and of the hopeless bondage to 
which it subjected them, had long since 
induced the majority of the nobles through- 
out Russia, Poland, Austrian Poland, and 
Hungary, to desire to remove themselves 



OF HUNGARY. 27 

from this unsatisfactory and perilous posi- 
tion. But both the Russian and the Aus- 
trian governments, though making illusory 
laws which threw the onus of this state of 
things upon the nobles, have at all times 
discouraged or prohibited, and in every 
instance (except that of Hungary in 1848,) 
effectually frustrated every attempt on the 
part of the landowners to emancipate their 
peasantry. 

Several Russian provinces — called " go- 
vernments" in Russia — during the early 
part of the reign of the Emperor Nicholas, 
who, himself, is at this time proprietor of 
upwards of sixteen millions of slaves apper- 
taining to his private domain, mooted the 
question, but were sternly bidden not to 
meddle in such matters. 

In Gallicia, or Austrian Poland, the en- 
franchisement of the serfs was not only, on 

c 2 



28 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

the one hand, prevented by Austria, but, on 
the other, the landlord was converted into 
a forced instrument of extortion by being 
made responsible to the crown for the men 
and money at which his estates were rated, 
whilst agents were appointed to whom the 
peasants could appeal, so that the govern- 
ment appeared, in their eyes, as a protector 
against the rapacity of their masters. 

In 1845 a revolutionary movement was 
anticipated on the part of the Polish nation, 
which (twenty millions in number) has never 
become reconciled to its partition between 
Russia, Prussia, and Austria, and as it was 
understood that the Gallician nobility were 
likely to join the insurrection, Austria, by 
means of Jesuits and subordinate agents, 
raised the peasantry against their masters. 
The most alarming and extravagant fictions 
were imposed on the credulity and ignorance 



OF HUNGARY. 29 

of the serfs by salaried Austrian agents. A 
price was placed upon the heads of the 
nobles, and their families, and the result 
was the massacre of upwards of three thou- 
sand men, women, and children, belonging 
to that class. 

In Hungary the urbarium of Maria The- 
resa, in 1764, had brought the serf above the 
actual level of the Gallician serf — that is to 
say, he could leave the estate on which he 
was settled, by paying up his debts, but 
this debt was necessarily influenced by the 
number of days' labour which could be ex- 
acted from him, which amounted to fifty- 
four — he, meanwhile, being amenable to 
limited corporeal punishment, at the dis- 
cretion of his lord. 

But the Diets which Austria, for the sake 
of obtaining supplies, was obliged, from time 
to time, to call together, and which, in 1807 



30 THE PAST AND EUTURE 

and in 1812, had boldly remonstrated with 
their sovereign, proposed, in the sessions of 
1832-4 and of 1839, the emancipation of 
the peasantry. This the cabinet of Vienna 
succeeded in preventing, although unable to 
hinder the effectuation of considerable ame- 
lioration in the condition of that class — such 
as further limitation of the power of punish- 
ment, the faculty conceded of commuting 
body-service for a money rent, and lastly, 
that of purchasing from his lord the freehold 
of the land he occupied, and therewith his 
enfranchisement from all duties. 



OF HUNGARY. 31 



DIETS AND PUBLIC MEN IN 
HUNGARY. 

Progressive character of Diets since 1832— 
great works undertaken. Kossuth devotes 
himself to assert the right of reporting 
speeches of members of the Diet. Braves 
Austria and is imprisoned. Austria 
obliged to release him. Szechenyi and 
Bathyanyi. Demand for the restoration 
of a Hungarian ministry. 

The Gallician massacres were a great lesson 
to the Magyars, and determined them to 
remove the danger with which Austria 
threatened them, whenever labouring to 
assert their liberties and rights. 

From 1832 the spirit of the country had 



32 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

been resolutely progressive, and the efforts 
of the Austrian cabinet had been as ener- 
getically directed to arrest this tendency, 
and still further to encroach. Count Szee- 
henyi and Louis Bathyanyi belonging to the 
higher aristocracy, Baron Wesselzenyi the 
Transylvanian, and lastly Kossuth, who may 
be regarded as having represented all classes 
of the nation, laboured conjointly and suc- 
cessfully to restore the Magyar language, 
which the Austrian government, in its en- 
deavours to denationalize the Hungarians, 
had supplanted by the German, and to 
promote the industrial and material im- 
provement of the country. In pursuance of 
this design, the Pesth and Solnok railway, 
the opening of the navigation of the Danube, 
and construction of the suspension bridge at 
Pesth, were undertaken. 

The opening of the navigation of the 



OF HUNGARY. 33 

Danube is one of the great engineering 
works of Europe; and, in 1848, the magnifi- 
cent suspension bridge at Pesth (which the 
ensuing year the Austrian garrison of Buda 
wantonly attempted to destroy,) was still 
the finest on that principle in the world. 
It is further worthy of remark that up to 
that time neither Vienna nor St. Petersburg 
had any but wretched floating wooden 
bridges to connect the sections of these 
capitols, divided by the Danube and the 
Neva. Kossuth from a very early period 
had foreseen and pointed out that the prin- 
cipal efforts of Austria would be directed to 
obtain the controul of the finances of Hun- 
gary. Austria bankrupt in 1812, was deep 
already in the embarrassments which are 
leading her to that same bankruptcy, which 
it is acknowledged must shortly overtake 
her. Historical experience had proved be- 

c 3 



34 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

sides, that this financial contronl is the chief 
safeguard of a nation's liberties, a conviction 
which all practical communities have enter- 
tained, and upon which the long parliament 
of Charles the First and George the Third's 
American colonies acted. Necessity and 
policy alike prompted Austria therefore to 
this course ; and, successfully to prosecute it, 
resort was systematically made to every 
species of parliamentary corruption and in- 
timidation. 

Though the members of the Hungarian 
Diet were rather delegates than represent- 
atives, entrusted with discretionary power, 
their constituencies could exercise over them 
but a very limited controul so long as the go- 
vernment prevented their votes and speeches 
from being recorded, through the censorship, 
without whose permission nothing could be 
published. To remedy this inconvenience, 



OP HUNGARY. 35 

Kossuth, then a journalist, caused reports of 
the Diet to be lithographed and distributed 
through the country. When these were 
prohibited, on the ground that they amount- 
ed equally to publication, he resorted to 
the expedient of having written copies made 
and distributed to each constituency. This 
attempt the Austrian cabinet resolved to 
check, threatening, if he persisted, to pro- 
secute him for treason with the whole 
weight of its influence and power. Kos- 
suth however, having " placed his house in 
order," devoted himself to do what all 
wished done, but what no other man would 
do, and daringly continued to distribute his 
circulars — was seized by the Austrian go- 
vernment, and condemned to three years 
imprisonment. It was in this imprisonment 
that, from the study of Shakspeare, he learn- 
ed the English tongue, in which his great 



36 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

crusade against absolutism has been preach- 
ed, so that the future may have yet to record 
that the Austrian absolutism was, so to say, 
pierced like the Eagle stricken by the shaft 
fledged with a feather from its own wing. 

The public spirit gathered, however, such 
impetus from this courageous devotion, that 
two years after, the government was obliged 
to liberate the captives — Kossuth emerging 
from his prison shattered in constitution, 
and Wesselzenyi blind. Returned by the 
most important county to the Diet, Kossuth 
became at once a party leader, devoting 
with untiring perseverance his energies and 
talents to the financial condition of his 
country, to the emancipation of the pea- 
santry, and to obtain a restoration of those 
political rights which would permit the na- 
tion to amend its institutions by the adoption 
of this and other necessary reforms. 



OP HUNGARY. 37 

It should be here observed, that as re- 
garded the three principal political leaders, 
Szechenyi, Bathyanyi, and Kossuth, that 
they never differed as to the end, but only 
as to the means. 

Szechenyi, who was first in the field, 
founded his chief hope on the development 
of the material resources of his country, 
which he imagined would render it so 
powerful as to oblige Austria to respect its 
wishes and its rights. Kossuth and Bath- 
yanyi cordially co-operated in these endea- 
vours, but argued that Austria being as well 
aware of the fact as themselves, would be 
thereby incited to more vigorous attempts 
to bring the country into political subjec- 
tion, and hence felt the necessity of such 
vigorous measures as the emancipation of 
the serfs, and amelioration of the political 
condition of all classes, which would disarm 



38 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

the cabinet of Vienna of the power of play- 
ing over again in Hungary, the sanguinary 
drama of Gallicia. Szechenyi who did not 
thoroughly appreciate either the spirit and 
resources of the country, nor the novel posi- 
tion which would oblige Austria either to 
resign its pretensions, or to adopt a more 
boldly hazardous policy, considered Bath- 
yanyi and Kossuth too rash and daring, in 
the same way that Bathyanyi subsequently 
thought Kossuth himself too sanguine 
when, during the two first invasions by Jel- 
lachich and Windischgratz, he did not de- 
spair of the salvation of the country. As 
events showed Bathyanyi and Kossuth to 
have been right with reference to Szechenyi, 
so Kossuth was proved to have been with 
regard to Bathyanyi, Hungary having been 
entirely reconquered upon both occasions, 
though Bathyanyi fell, as I shall subse- 



OF HUNGARY. 89 

quently have to show, the victim of his un- 
belief. 

One of the immediate aims of the Hun- 
garian patriots was to obtain a ministry re- 
sident in Hungary, as a step indispensable 
to the recovery of those rights still nomi- 
nally possessed by them, but really with- 
held from them by Austria, and which were 
indispensable to the amelioration of their 
institutions . The Hungarian native ministry 
which formerly had always resided in the 
Magyar capital as ministers of the Hunga- 
rian King, not of the Austrian Emperor, 
had been removed to Vienna, and trans- 
formed into an insignificant Department, 
called the Hungarian Chancery. 



40 THE PAST AND FUTURE 



THE EMPEROR OE AUSTRIA SWEARS 
TO THE CONSTITUTION. 

The Home of Hapsburg, threatened on all 
sides with revolution, to conciliate Hun- 
gary restores its ancient constitution — 
Made use of to effect reforms — The Em- 
peror comes into Hungary to sanction them, 
and to swear to the constitution. 

It is frequently asserted that the convulsions 
which shook Europe in 1848 were occa- 
sioned by the French revolution. This re- 
volution, it is true, gave a fresh impetus to 
the march of events; but to allege that 
they originated in it, is to make a confusion 
of cause and effect, which a few facts and 
dates will rectify. The triumph of the 



OF HUNGARY. 41 

liberal cause in Switzerland, the insurrection 
of Sicily, the constitutions granted to Sar- 
dinia and Denmark, the reforms promised 
by the Pope, and the agitation pervading 
Italy were all antecedent to, and mainly 
operative in, the overthrow of Louis 
Philippe. 

Revolutions in Europe are accelerated by 
any internal convulsion in France ; but these 
convulsions are as likely to be produced by 
occurrences beyond her boundary as to pro- 
duce them. This was the case with Hun- 
gary. The spirit which had obliged the 
Austrian Cabinet to liberate Kossuth and 
Wesselzenyi was resolutely and progressively 
rising when, on March 2, 1848, telegraphic 
accounts of the Preneh revolution reached 
Pressburg, where the Diet was sitting. 

Kossuth, on the following day, made a 
memorable speech in the Diet, in which he 



42 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

advised demanding from Austria the consti- 
tutional administration of the finances, and in 
which he reiterated the opinions he had re- 
cently expressed, that Hungary could not be 
sure of the reforms it desired at home, of 
the constitutional tendency of those reforms, 
or of their results, so long as the system of 
the monarchy, which had the same prince as 
the Hungarians, remained in direct opposi- 
tion to constitutionalism ; and so long as 
that privy council, which conducted the 
general administration of the monarchy, re- 
mained anti-constitutional in its elements 
and tendency, and in which he repeated 
his conviction, that the prince who would 
reform, upon a constitutional basis, the beau- 
reaucratic system of Vienna, reared on the 
ruins of the liberties of the states consti- 
tuting the Austrian Empire, would be the 
second founder of the House of Hapsburg. 



OF HUNGARY. 43 

Kossuth's speech had a profound effect 
on the population of Vienna, amongst which 
the situation of Europe and the expulsion 
of Louis Philippe had occasioned a great 
fermentation. On the 13th of March, 
headed by the academic legion, the people 
marched to the imperial palace and de- 
manded and obtained the promise of a con- 
stitution. On the 15th of March, Kossuth, 
at the head of a deputation of the Diet, ar- 
rived in Vienna to demand the restoration of 
a resident Hungarian ministry, consisting of 
Hungarians devoting themselves exclusively 
to the management of Hungarian affairs. This 
demand was conceded. The chief states and 
cities of the House of Austria were in a 
state of declared or incipient revolution. 
Bohemia was on the eve of insurrection, and 
a profound agitation reigned among the 
Sclavonic population of the empire, On 



44 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

the 16th of March the Viennese had in- 
sisted upon having, and had obtained a 
written constitution ; on the 21st, Metter- 
nich was dismissed; on the 18th, the insur- 
rection broke out in Lombardy; on the 
22d, Radetsky was expelled from Milan 
with the imperial army ; and on the 23 d, 
Count Zichy had given up Venice by capi- 
tulation. 

In the midst of this general disintegra- 
tion of the Austrian Empire the House of 
Hapsburg, in its need, turned, as it had 
done before, in the time of Maria Theresa, 
to the Hungarians, and to secure their 
loyalty, hastened to concede to them their 
rights. Kossuth, the man whom Austria 
had illegally held in a long and rigorous 
captivity, was now appealed to by its cabinet 
to exert his mediative influence, which he 
did in such a manner as afterward enabled 



OF HUNGARY. 45 

him conscientiously to assert in his cele- 
brated speech at Winchester — 

" That humble individual as he was, he 
had held in his hand the crowns of imperial 
Austria, and that if that perjured House of 
Hapsburg still ruled, he could declare before 
history, which was his witness, and posterity 
which would be his judge, that its existence 
was owing only to his forbearance/' 

On the 26th of March, a separate ministry 
was agreed to and appointed ; on the 30th, 
it was published, and on the 11th of April, 
the Emperor Ferdinand, as King of Hun- 
gary, and accompanied by the present Em- 
peror, came deliberately, of his own free will, 
into the Hungarian territory, and into the 
midst of the Hungarian Diet, to legalize 
and sanction, by his approval and accept- 
ance, the new laws which it had passed, and 
to swear solemnly to the constitution. 



46 THE PAST AND FUTURE 



EQUALIZATION OF ALL RACES 
AND ALL CLASSES. 

April II, 1848, emancipation of the serfs, 
and equalization of all classes and races 
carried by Kossuth in the Diet. 

These laws, passed by the Hungarian Diet 
and sanctioned by the crown within twenty 
days of the concession of a separate and re- 
sponsible ministry, equalized throughout 
Hungary, Transylvania, Sclavonia, and 
Croatia, all classes and all races be- 
fore the law, and — with one exception — 
decreed universal religious toleration. 
That exception was in favour of the Roman 
Catholic province of Croatia, whose former 
law, forbidding Protestants to settle in that 
country, was suffered to remain unaltered. 



OF HUNGAEY, 47 

Lastly, these laws not only proclaimed 
the emancipation of the peasantry from 
their feudal burdens, and their elevation to 
equality of civil and political rights with 
the first magnates of the land, but they en- 
dowed these emancipated serfs in perpetuity 
with the lands, for which formerly their 
body-service was exacted, and, at the same 
time, provided compensation for the land- 
owners out of the national domains, 

These measures, passed by a unanimous 
vote of a Diet of landlords and of magnates, 
were due principally to the energy and elo- 
quence of Kossuth, who had laboured in 
this direction untiringly for years, and w T ho 
now, pointing to the signs of the times, 
succeeded in persuading the Hungarian re- 
presentatives magnanimously to make com- 
plete, by the addition of endowment, that 
boon of emancipation which their security 



48 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

and patriotic duty prompted them to concede. 
By this act two-thirds of the whole popula- 
tion (except that of the military frontier, 
where no such body-service existed), amount- 
ing to about one million and three-quarters 
of families, representing between eight and 
nine millions of individuals, were raised 
from a servile condition to the free pro- 
prietorship of the soil on which they had 
previously been settled. 

No political measure in the history of 
Europe has been more unmixedly beneficial 
and successful. Austria, even with Russia 
at her back, has never dared retract or dis- 
turb either this emancipation or the distribu- 
tion, and from that time to the present, 
Hungary has presented a picture, unfor- 
tunately unexampled on the continent of 
Europe, of the most perfect harmony be- 
tween classes formerly estranged, whilst the 



OF HUNGARY. 49 

magnate, the noble, the burgher, and the 
peasant engaged in a common cause, have 
been since seen bleeding on the same battle- 
field, side by side, sharing the same captivity 
or triumph, and ascending the same scaffold. 
The Hungarians have been reproached by 
those who cannot deny these concessions 
with granting them too late, under the pres- 
sure of circumstances, and when the war 
was assuming an unfavourable aspect. It 
will be perceived that these memorable laws 
w r ere passed, not only before the war had 
begun, but several weeks previous to any 
domestic disturbances. It remains only to 
be added, that no attempt was ever, at any 
time, made afterward by the Executive or 
Diet to qualify or rescind them. 



50 THE PAST AND FUTURE 



AUSTRIA INCITES RACE AGAINST 
RACE. 

Austria no longer able to set class against 
class, incites race against race. Works 
through the Jesuits and the Greek clergy. 
The Ban Jellachich stirs up civil war, and 
urges the Serbians and Sclavonians to 
massacre and outrage, before they can be 
made atvare that the Hungarian Diet has 
equalized all classes and all races before 
the lata. Jellachich solemnly proclaimed 
a traitor and a rebel by the JEmperor, to 
lull the Hungarians into security. 

But the Austrian Cabinet, though anxious 
in the moment of its need to propitiate the 
Magyars, still true to its old habit, im- 
mediately prepared to counteract all its con- 
cessions on the first favourable opportunity ; 



OF HUNGARY. 51 

and, as soon as it began to recover from the 
first shock of the danger which assailed it, 
proceeded energetically in its perfidious 
course. 

On the 24th of March, that is to say, a 
few days after a separate ministry had been 
agreed to, the Arch-Duke Stephen, the 
Palatine or Imperial Viceroy, wrote to the 
Emperor Ferdinand a letter (afterwards in- 
tercepted and published) which contained 
the following passage : 

" I shall at present attempt to bring 

forward the three measures by which alone 

I hope to attain any result in Hungary. 

The first measure would be to withdraw the 

whole armed force from the country, and 

leave it a prey to total devastation ; to look 

passively on the disorders and fire-raisings, 

and also upon the struggles between nobles 

and peasants/' 

b 2 



52 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

The letter then proceeds to point out as 
the second means, the attempt to influence 
Count Louis Bathyanyi ; and, as the third, 
the recall of the Palatine, and the sending 
a roval Commissioner " invested with ex- 
traordinary powers, and accompanied by a 
considerable military force, who, after dis- 
solving the Diet there, should proceed to 
Pesth and carry on the government there 
with a strong hand, as long as circumstances 
would permit/' 

As the emancipation of the peasantry and 
equalisation of all classes before the law, 
rendered it impossible to set class against 
class, the Austrian cabinet lost no time in 
setting race against race before it was too 
late. 

Austria possessed two means of operating 
on the ignorance of the Croatian, Sclavonian, 
Serbian and Wallack populations. With 



OF HUNGARY. 53 

the Croatians through the agency of the 
Jesuits and a portion of the Roman Catholic 
clergy ; with the other races named, who 
belonged to the Greek Church, through the 
interest of Russia, who had long since culti- 
vated an influence with the Greek clergy for 
purposes of its own, but which for the mo- 
ment it was glad to abandon, in order to 
assist Austria to stem the tide of revolution. 
Urban was despatched by the Austrian 
cabinet to incite the Wallacks against the 
Magyars ; Rajacsics the Greek patriarch, 
whom it gained over, amongst the Serbians ; 
and it illegally appointed Jellachich, its 
creature, Ban of Croatia, and sent him to 
intrigue in that province, and with the 
military colonies of the frontier, where he 
enjoyed some popularity. 

All these populations had a general im- 
pression, or I should say, conviction — the 



54 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

same as at the present time is entertained 
throughout the Austrian Empire — that 
nothing can prevent its dissolution. This 
belief, their vanity and ambition, and the 
prejudice of race against the Magyars was 
skilfully turned to account. Some of the 
Croatians, Sclavonians and Serbians of Hun- 
gary were persuaded that the time was come 
to found upon the ruins of the Austrian 
Empire, a Sclavonic Empire, w r hich should 
easily absorb the hitherto dominant Magyars, 
and the sympathies of Turkish Serbia were 
enlisted in the same cause. Others were 
told that the House of Austria would 
willingly see them constituted into free 
states under its supremacy. Rajacsics and 
the Greek clergy were encouraged to believe 
that they could found a theocracy, and Jel- 
lachich figured as a Sclavonian liberal. The 
reforms passed by the Hungarian Diet were 



OF HUNGARY. 55 

either denied or derided as a snare, and the 
enactment for the diffusion of the Magyar 
language, was cited as a proof that that 
people intended to root out their nationality 
and religion. Above all, no time was lost 
in coming to blows and engaging in civil 
war, which should embitter prejudice, and 
silence all discussion, 

The Croatian and Sclavonic frontiers of 
Turkish Bosnia and Serbia were inhabited 
by the military colonies originally estab- 
lished to protect the border from the in- 
roads of the Turks. 

The whole population of these colonies 
was subjected to a strict military organiza- 
tion. It consisted, in fact, of regiments, 
with families, cultivating lands. 

Of these military colonies Jellachich 
availed himself. He invited over sympa- 
thisers and freebooters from Turkish Serbia, 



56 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

and incited an attack upon the Magyar 
villages. 

A glance at map No. 1 will show that 
the Magyar population chiefly inhabits the 
central portions of Hungary, whilst other 
races, like the Serbians and Wallacks, are 
located in the natural order of their immi- 
gration from Serbia or Wallachia, or in the 
mountain ranges to which they may have 
been originally driven. But this distribu- 
tion, as marked upon the map, is only 
general, not absolute. A great, and, in 
fact, inextricable admixture exists through- 
out the country, and in the same manner 
that there are other races settled in the 
districts where the Magyars predominate; 
so Magyar villages are mixed up where the 
Serbians, Wallachians, and Sclavonians con- 
stitute the majority. These Magyars, like 
the people amongst whom they live, were 



OF HUNGARY. 57 

the least enlightened and most prejudiced 
and violent, and the same antipathies ex- 
isted between them and the Serbians, for 
instance, as reciprocally between the Ser- 
bians and Wallachians. 

A few massacres by a disorderly soldiery 
and drunken freebooters, led to retaliation 
on the part of the Magyars, and in a few 
weeks the whole frontier line was in a blaze 
of civil war and insurrection. 

On the 13th of May, Jellachich called a 
Serbian, and on the 5th of June, a Croatian, 
assembly together. On the 10th of June, 
his conduct was solemnly disowned by the 
Austrian Cabinet, and he was officially pro- 
claimed by the Emperor a traitor and a 
rebel 

Kossuth, who had been appointed Fi- 
nance Minister of the Hungarian Cabinet, 
* over which Count Louis Bathyanyi presided, 

d 3 



58 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

had penetrated the designs of Austria, but 
was unable to place the country in a due 
condition of defence, through the timidity 
of Count Bathyanyi and of the Conser- 
vatives, who, although convinced of the 
treachery of Austria, imagined, on the one 
hand, that she would not venture on any 
positive hostility unless a pretext were fur- 
nished, which the attempt to arm the 
country would afford, whilst, on the other 
hand, they did not believe that it could be 
placed, in time, in a condition to resist. 

It was not, therefore, till the 11th of 
July that the Diet could be got to pass 
laws for a levy of 200,000 men, to which 
the Emperor evaded giving any sanction. 



OF HUNGARY. 59 



FIRST INVASION OF HUNGARY. 

SIXTY-FIVE THOUSAND MEN AGAINST FIVE THOU- 
SAND. (See Map No. I.) 

Jettachich crosses the Drave and invades 
Hungary— Approval of his conduct by the 
Emperor, while the Emperor s Viceroy 
offers to head the Hungarian troops — 
Tlie Viceroy having helped to paralyse 
resistance, escapes into Austria— The Em- 
peror illegally appoints Count Lamberg 
commander of the Hungarian forces — 
The Diet vote the appointment unconstitu- 
tional, and himself a traitor if he attempts 
to carry it out — Lamberg enters Pesth, is 
killed by the people — Jettachich loithin 
sight of the capital — Bathyanyi a?id his 
colleagues retire in consternation — Kos- 
suth organises resistance — Battle of Pah- 
hozd, and total defeat of Jettachich. 

On the 9th of September the Emperor re- 



60 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

fused at length his sanction to the very 
laws he had himself proposed on the 2d of 
July, through his viceroy, to lull the sus- 
picion of the Diet ; and on the same day, 
Jellachich, after reading to his army an Im- 
perial decree, dated 4th of September, 
which declared him to have "proved his 
unalterable fidelity to the House of Austria" 
crossed the Drave, and advanced into Hun- 
gary. 

He was joined, as he proceeded, by Ge- 
neral Ottinger, by a regiment of Austrian 
cuirassiers, and by other Austrian corps and 
garrisons upon his passage, with which he 
advanced, devastating the country and mas- 
sacreing the Magyar and German popula- 
tion. Some idea of the conduct of his 
troops and their auxiliaries may be formed 
from the fact, that Mr. Fonblanque, the 
British Consul -General at Belgrade, in 



OF HUNGARY. 61 

Turkish Serbia, where their plunder was 
disposed of, was obliged to complain to the 
Prince of Serbia of the disgusting spectacle 
offered in the market-place, where the ear- 
rings and rings of women, still appended to 
the dissevered ears, or encircling the fingers 
of gory hands, were exhibited for sale, like 
fruits culled with the leaf to render them 
more tempting. 

Jellachich mustered 65,000 men, inclu- 
sive of his rear-guard, numbering 12,000, 
whilst in the whole of Hungary there were 
only 5,000 disposable Hungarian troops, 
not more than half of whom were within 
reach of the Diet. That is to say, of 
18,000 regular troops in the country, 8000, 
including the garrisons of Temesvar and 
Arad, went over to Jellachich. Of the 
10,000 remaining, 5000 were required to 
garrison Comorn and Peterwardein. Fur- 



62 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

thermore, the stores of arms accumulated by 
the Diet in Esseg and Peterwardein had 
been secretly distributed by the commanders 
to arm the insurgents. Nothing could ap- 
pear more helpless and hopeless than the 
condition of the country ; and the old Con- 
servative party, without faith in the na- 
tional resources, sent deputation after depu- 
tation to the Emperor Ferdinand, and clung, 
with the tenacity of despair, to the promises 
of the Arch-Duke Palatine. 

On the 4th of September, Esterhazy (a 
mere creature of the Austrian Camarilla) 
had abandoned the ministry, and on the 9th, 
Louis Bathyanyi had resigned, both for 
himself and on behalf of his colleagues, so 
that Hungary would have remained at this 
critical moment without a ministry, but for 
the decision of Kossuth, who declared that 
he had not resigned, and would continue in 



OF HUNGARY. 63 

office ; where his first step was to organize 
the militia. On the 1 5th of September the 
Arch-Duke Palatine, the Emperor's Viceroy, 
who, on the 2d of July, had, in the Empe- 
ror's name, repeated the denunciation of 
Jellachich as a traitor and a rebel, made on 
the 10th of the preceding June, offered to 
place himself at the head of the forces 
raised to oppose him, thereby giving hope 
to the timid, and helping to distract the 
councils of the nation. On the 21st, after 
much ambiguity and evasion, the Emperor 
refused to order the withdrawal of Jella- 
chich, which Bathyanyi made the condition 
of forming a new ministry, and on the 23d, 
the Arch-Duke Palatine Stephen deserted 
stealthily from his camp, and escaped into 
the Austrian territory. On the following 
day a letter was intercepted and published 
from Jellachich to Count Latour, the Aus- 



64 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

trian Minister of War, acknowledging the 
receipt of money and of military stores; 
and on the 23d, Count Lamberg, an obse- 
quious servitor of the Imperial Court, was 
illegally and unconstitutionally appointed 
Commander-in-chief of all the forces in 
Hungary. 

At this moment all was consternation, 
but Kossuth had induced the Diet to* nomi- 
nate a committee of defence, over which he 
presided, which enabled him to take the 
energetic measures for that resistance, of 
which his colleagues had despaired. 

To have allowed Lamberg to assume this 
command would simply have been to let the 
wolf into the fold, and to have placed at the 
disposal of a betrayer the disproportioned 
forces mustered to oppose the overwhelming 
invasion of the Ban. The Diet, therefore, 
passed a resolution declaring his appoint- 



OF HUNGARY. 65 

ment illegal, and himself a traitor if he at- 
tempted to carry out his commission. 

Nevertheless, Lamberg, counting on the 
fears of a party in the Diet, did attempt it ; 
on the 28th, was recognised crossing the 
bridge at Pesth, and was immediately put 
to death by the infuriated mob. In his 
pocket was discovered the order to dissolve 
the Diet, a proceeding diametrically opposed 
to the constitution, and evidence was found 
of his intention to seize the citadel of Buda, 
occupied by a mixed garrison of Imperial 
troops and national guards, to proclaim mar- 
tial law, overawe the capital, and paralyze 
all defence. 

The destruction of Lamberg by the 
people was a murder, but, if they had not 
killed him, it was clearly the duty of the 
Diet to have sentenced and executed him as 
a traitor and a spy, 



66 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

At this time the camp-fires of Jellachich 
were visible from the spires of Buda. 
Count Bathyanyi had retired from Pesth, 
and Kossuth, abandoned by his despairing 
colleagues, obtained executive powers from 
the Diet for the committee over which he 
presided. 

On the 29th, Jellachich having resumed 
his march, a battle was fought at Pakhozd, 
twelve miles from Pesth, between his post 
and the army of soldiers, citizens, and mi- 
litia, improvised by Kossuth. The result 
was the defeat of Jellachich, who, at the 
close of the day, sent over a flag of truce 
proposing an armistice. 



OF HUNGARY. 67 



HUNGARIANS MARCH TO THE RE- 
LIEE OF VIENNA. 

Armistice dishonourably broken by Jellachich, 
who escaped by forced marches into Austria, 
leaving behind 18,000 men, who surrendered 
' — The Emperor appoints him plenipotent 
commissary in Hungary — Conservative 
party prevent the pursuit of Jellachich — 
Troops sent from Vienna to reinforce them 
detained by the people — Insurrection in 
that city — Death of the Minister of War 
— Vienna in the hands of the peop)le — 
Prince Windischgratz marches on Vienna 
— Kossuth reaches the camp, persuades the 
Hungarians to march to its relief — This 
relief delayed through the treachery of 
Moga till Vienna had fallen — Battle of 



68 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

Swechat — Bepulse and retreat of the 
Hungarians, 

An armistice was concluded for three days, 
during which it was stipulated that neither 
party should move from its position ; but 
after nightfall Jellachich retired, by forced 
marches, to the Austrian frontier, and was 
enabled to escape through the connivance 
of General Moga, chief of the staff, to 
the fugitive Arch-Duke Palatine, who had 
been left in command of the Hungarian 
forces. 

The Ban, however, left behind him his 
rear guard, under generals Phillipovitch and 
Rott, who were obliged to surrender, twelve 
days afterwards, with 12,000 men, to General 
Ozora, and 6,000 more who were destroyed 
by the Hungarian levies at Kanischa. 
Austria had, however, scattered her parti- 
zans and agents throughout Hungary, who 



OF HUNGARY. 69 

were actively furthering her interests in all 
branches of the executive, and principally 
in the army, whose very commander, Moga, 
was a creature of the Austrian court. 

These people, working on the timidity of 
the Conservatives, and on the scruples of the 
Hungarians, who have always been slaves of 
legality, persuaded them to pause, when 
they came to the Austrian frontier, and for- 
bear from pursuing the invader beyond the 
territories of Hungary. 

On crossing the Austrian frontier, Jella- 
chich detached 18,000 men southward ; the 
remainder of his force subsequently took 
part in the second invasion, under Windisch- 
gratz, where the whole of it perished, except 
some 7,000 men ; so that of the 65,000 
men who crossed the Drave under his com- 
mand, 40,000 were killed or made prisoners 
in Hungary. 



70 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

Jellachich, instead of being repudiated by 
the Emperor, was named by him, through 
an imperial decree from Schonbraun, on the 
3d of October, commander-in-chief of all 
the forces of Hungary, with orders to place 
the country under martial law, dissolve the 
Diet, and annul all the enactments it had 
made in its own defence. 

Mr. Francis Pulsky, Hungarian Secretary 
of State, and who had been left, after the 
dissolution of the Ministry on the 9th, in 
charge of its duties at Vienna, had, at his 
own peril, published the intercepted corre- 
spondence between the Imperial Court and 
Jellachich. 

The effect of this publication, which re- 
vealed to the Viennese the perfidy of their 
government, together with the fact that it 
was provoking the victorious Hungarians to 
a Avar, resulted in the insurrection of the 



OF HUNGARY. 71 

5th of October, which commenced through 
an attempt on the . part of the indignant 
people to prevent an unwilling regiment 
from being sent away to aid Jellachich. 

The people, having been fired upon, rose 
in arms, repulsed the troops who took part 
with the government, invested the palace of 
the War Minister, Count Latour, from whom 
the unconstitutional order had emanated. 
Latour, in great alarm, w r as led out into the 
balcony by his friends, and promised to re- 
call the commands he had given, by which 
the crowd outside the building was entirely 
pacified. But returning to the back part of 
the house, he was seen by those who had 
penetrated thither, and who were ignorant 
of what had just passed in the street. 
With a shout, which drowned all explanation 
or entreaty, they dragged him down and 
hanged him to a lamp-post. 



72 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

Count Latour (together with the Arch- 
Duchess Sophia, a bold and ambitious prin- 
cess, and Dr. Bach, the liberal renegade, 
their tool) had been the inspiring genius of 
reaction, and, like Lamberg, he was both 
perjured and a traitor to his country, whose 
constitution he had sworn to maintain, and 
which he was perfidiously involving in a 
war with Hungary. 

This insurrection placed Vienna in the 
power of the Diet assembled in that city. 
It was soon known that Prince Windisch- 
gratz, who had put down the insurrection 
in Bohemia, was marching against Vienna. 
Kossuth had been anxious that the Hun- 
garians should have followed up and exter- 
minated Jellachich on the Austrian territory. 
He was more anxious they should furnish 
assistance to the people of Vienna against 
their common enemy, but he could not pre- 



OF HUNGARY. 73 

vail on the Hungarians to cross the border 
without a formal invitation from the legis- 
lative assembly or executive of Austria, 
whilst on their part, these authorities, though 
verbally inviting the Hungarians to enter, 
and, although preparing to defend the city 
against the Imperial troops, had yet no man 
among them who would compromise himself 
by that proceeding. 

On the 24th of October, Kossuth, with 
12,000 volunteers and thirty pieces of can- 
non reached the Hungarian camp, and, on 
the 27th, persuaded the army to cross the 
frontier to the relief of Vienna. On the 
29th, General Moga begged only that the 
attack should be deferred for four and 
twenty hours, that is to say, until the 30th, 
a respite he had the influence to obtain, 
and which enabled Windischgratz to enter 
Vienna, of which his troops were already in 

E 



74 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

possession when the Hungarians attacked 
him on the following day. At the battle 
of Swechat, which ensued, the Hungarian 
army, only thirty thousand strong, including 
scythemen, found itself engaged, without 
chance of diversion, against sixty thousand 
of the troops of Windischgratz. At first 
the Hungarians were successful, storming 
the village of Mannsworth and easily rout- 
ing the Croatians of Jellachich, but it was 
perceived, only just in time to save the 
army from destruction, that it had fallen or 
been led into a snare, so that the baffled 
Hungarians were forced to make a precipi- 
tate retreat. 

General Moga, who escaped, after the 
battle, to the Austrians, was nevertheless, 
after the war, tried by an Austrian court 
martial, and alleged in his defence, which 
the Viennese papers were allowed to publish, 



OF HUNGARY. /D 

"I gave the army, bound hand and foot, 
into the power of Prince Windischgratz 
and he had not enough wit or courage to 
take advantage of it." 

The Hungarian army recrossed the fron- 
tier, and Kossuth having in part re-officered 
it, retired to Pesth to organize the defence 
of the kingdom against Windischgratz, who, 
he foresaw, would speedily invade it. 

Thus terminated the first campaign, began 
with 65,000 men, when Hungary was not 
only disturbed by two rebellions and un- 
armed, having only 5,000 disposable troops 
in the country, but when treachery had 
rendered its conditiont still more defenceless, 
and when dupes or traitors deliberated 
in its councils and shared its commands. 
From the field of Pakhozd, whose watch- 
fires were distinguishable from the spires 
of Pesth, it had led the Hungarian army 

e 2 



76 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

within sight of the steeples of Vienna, and, 
if the advice of Kossuth had been followed, 
would have placed the arbitration of the 
destinies of the Empire in the hands of the 
Hungarian Diet. 



OF HUNGARY. 77 



SECOND INVASION OF HUNGARY. 

Undertaken with 220,000 men against 
70,000, of whom only half were armed. 
{Map No. 2.) ' 

In Italy, Charles Albert, more afraid of the 
republicans than of the Austrians, had lost 
the golden opportunity, and was forced to 
sue for peace. Milan, whose unaided popu- 
lation had driven out Radetsky in March, 
capitulated in August to the same Radetsky, 
when it had a royal army, and a king within 
its walls, who had proclaimed his resolution 
to bury himself, if necessary, beneath the 
ruins of the city, in Its defence. Insurrec- 
tion had been put down in Bohemia, and 
the Imperial authority re-established in the 



78 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

capital, so that the Austrian cabinet was 
now at liberty to devote all its resources to 
crushing Hungary. 

Field Marshal Prince Windischgratz, after 
the entrance of several co-operating armies, 
crossed the Hungarian frontier, on the 16th 
of December, 1848. The total force with 
which he invaded Hungary, from the west, 
exceeded 85,000 men, inclusive of the corps 
of Simonich and Hurban, which entered 
from the north-western corner, and the force 
of General Dahlen, which operated to the 
south of the Neusiedler Lake. 

General Schlick occupied Kaschau, Epe- 
ries, and the great road leading from the 
passes of the Carpathians on the frontier of 
Gallicia, toward the Theiss, and intersecting 
the mountain region of upper Hungary, from 
north to south. He had entered on the 1st 
of December, and defeated Pultsky at Kas- 



OF HUNGARY. 79 

chau, although losing his chief of the staff, 
taken prisoner, and his second in command 
amongst the dead. He then fought a drawn 
battle with General Messaros, at Siksio, and 
a few days later defeated him signally, at 
Bartza, and obliged him to retire across the 
Theiss. 

The orders of Schlick were to maintain 
himself in this region till he received notice 
of the advance of the main army, under 
Prince Windischgratz, when he was to push 
forward upon Debretzin. Encouraged by 
his success, he made, however, two attempts 
to cross the Theiss, but was repulsed by 
General Klapka, and then took up the ex- 
pectant position he had originally intended 
to assume, with a force raised, by reinforce- 
ments which had joined him, to five-and- 
twenty thousand men. 

In Transylvania, Puchner was at the head 



80 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

of from twelve to fifteen thousand Austrian 
troops ; General Luders soon after occupied 
the south with ten thousand Russians, and 
the Wallachian regiments of the military 
frontier, together with other forces, number- 
ed upwards of thirty thousand men. Urban 
(the Wallack) and Janko had been as suc- 
cessful in raising the Wallachian peasantry, 
by the same means, as Jellachich and Rajac- 
sics had been with the Croats, Serbians, and 
Sclavonians. Like Rajacsics, they operated 
through the Russian interest, with the Greek 
clergy ; and like Jellachich, profited by the 
discipline and subordination of the military 
colonies. 

In the north-west, where the Slovack 
Hurban tried to rouse the Slovack popula- 
tion, which was better educated, and more 
within reach of knowledge of events, he 
never succeeded in raising in Hungary more 



OF HUNGARY. 81 

than one batallion. The remainder of the 
Slovacks identified themselves with the 
Magyars, fighting by tens of thousands 
in the ranks, whilst it is worthy of notice, 
that in a like manner, the Catholic Ser- 
bians, Ruthenians, Germans, and Wallacks 
of Hungary (though not the Transylvanian 
Wallacks) made common cause with the 
Magyars. 

In the south, between Austrians, Croa- 
tians, Sclavonians, Hungarian Serbians, and 
Turkish Serbians (of whom, during the 
second and third invasions, 80,000 crossed 
the frontier), there were under the orders of 
Jellachich and Knichanin, or garrisoning 
the fortresses of Arad, Temesvar, and Esseg 
between fifty and sixty thousand men. 

To face this invasion, made by 220,000 
men (inclusive of 150,000 regulars), Kos- 
suth, the president of the Committee of 

e 3 



82 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

Defence, had but from 65 to 70,000 men, 
of whom not more than 35,000 were 
regularly armed, and only 10,000 had been 
disciplined as regulars, the remainder con- 
sisting of militia or of newly raised and still 
undisciplined levies, waiting for muskets or 
armed with pikes or scythes. There were 
not, in fact, at the commencement of this 
second invasion, 35,000 firelocks in the 
whole Hungarian army, and it was only "by 
degrees that the remainder of the troops 
were provided with them. Kossuth first 
established factories at Pesth and then at 
Groswardein, together with moveable ar- 
morer's smithies, which followed the armies, 
repairing the muskets taken from the enemy, 
or which otherwise got out of order, and 
making up whole ones from the various 
parts of those grown quite unserviceable. 
Out of this force 4,000 occupied Thorda, 



OF HUNGARY. 83 

in Transylvania, under Czets, or had been 
driven across the Hungarian frontiers ; 9,000 
were stationed on the upper Theiss ; 10,000 
under Generals Kiss and Esterhazy, in the 
south ; 5,000 in the south-west, under 
Perczel, and 6,000 garrisoning Peterwar- 
dein. 

Comorn itself was, properly speaking, 
without a garrison, except the citizens of 
the national guard, who, armed with pikes 
and scythes, did duty on the walls ; and 
the recruits, who assembled there to be 
armed and drilled for a few days, previous 
to their being sent to join their different 
corps — Kossuth judging that Comorn could 
not be invested till the main western army 
had been defeated, and that, if that army 
were defeated, it would retire upon Comorn 
and constitute a garrison for the fortress. 

The main western army, intended directly 



84 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

to check the advance of Prince Windischgratz, 
comprised the best regiments in the service, 
and had been raised to 33,000 men. To 
the command of this army, Kossuth had 
been forced by circumstances to appoint 
Arthur Gorgey. 



OF HUNGARY. 85 



ARTHUR GORGEY. 

Kossuth's reason for promoting Gorgey — 
character and conduct of that commander 
until his retreat to JPesth. 

Besides the odds of overwhelming numbers, 
besides the rebellions of the Serbians, 
Croatians, and Wallachians (of Transyl- 
vania), and besides the fears of the faint- 
hearted in the Diet, which he had to face ; 
there was this further difficulty which he 
had to contend with, that there was scarcely 
an officer above the rank of a captain or 
lieutenant, on whom he could rely, so perse- 
veringly had the policy of Austria perverted, 
or so jealously had it stopped the promotion 
of those Hungarians serving in its armies, 
whom it could not pervert. 



86 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

This has been one of the chief reasons of 
his selection of Gorgey, whom he appointed, 
after the retreat of the army from Swechat, 
to the chief command. Kossuth, who had 
long foreseen that the sword would eventually 
decide the contest, was painfully aware of 
the disadvantage under which the popular 
cause laboured, and at an early period had 
cast about him, to ascertain what talent 
could be discerned among subalterns, on 
whose fidelity to their country he could rely. 
At this time his attention was called to 
Arthur Gorgey. Gorgey, a Hungarian by 
birth and parentage, had early entered the 
Austrian army, which he left in consequence 
of a quarrel with a superior officer, decided 
by a Court of Inquiry, which led, according 
to the custom of the service, to Gorgey's 
retirement, although the case was decided 
in his favour. Having repaired to Bohemia, 



OF HUNGARY. 87 

he devoted himself to the study of chemistry, 
in which science he became a remarkable 
proficient. On the death of his father, he 
retired to the patrimonial estate in northern 
Hungary, and endeavoured to utilize his 
theoretical knowledge in mining operations. 
At a subsequent period, when Kossuth was 
minister, an influential member of the Diet 
came to ask, for Gorgey, the place, then 
vacant, of engineer to the mint. Kossuth 
refused it, and, being pressed and assured of 
the ability of the candidate proposed, replied, 
" I know it ; if I do not appoint him to 
that office, it is because probably before a 
year, I shall want him to make out of him 
a minister of war." 

Gorgey was supposed at the time of the 
battle of Swechat to be thoroughly com- 
promised on account of his having hanged 
Count Zichy, whose family was very in- 



88 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

fluential at the Court of Austria, and whom 
he put to death after he had been sentenced 
as a traitor, though no one else would ex- 
ecute him. Count Zichy was a Hungarian 
nobleman, who entered Pesth a few days 
before the advance of the Ban Jellachich, 
during the first invasion, and in whose car- 
riage a stock of treasonable proclamations 
were discovered, which he had undertaken 
to distribute. 

Previous to the battle of Swechat, the 
choice of Kossuth had been limited to 
Gorgey and Ivanka, a young officer of great 
promise, on whom he would have conferred 
the command, but who, having gone to the 
Austrian camp with a flag of truce, was 
detained prisoner, according to the Austrian 
practice, in violation of all the usages of war. 

During the battle, after Major Guyon 
had carried by storm the village of Manns- 



OF HUNGARY. 89 

worth, and just as Colonel Gorgey was 
attacking Swechat on the Austrian centre, 
which was the key to the position, General 
Moga recalled him. When Kossuth, who 
saw how the Commander in Chief was com- 
promising the success of the battle and the 
safety of the army, insisted on counter 
orders being given, Moga resigned his baton 
of command. Gorgey, coming up at that 
moment to complain of the injurious effect 
of Moga's orders, was appointed to the 
command by Kossuth, who, at this time, 
had no other choice. 

Kossuth, now (as throughout the war), 
w^as, above all, determined to have one main 
army, whose superiority in quality, numbers, 
or in both these requisites, should enable it 
to beat any hostile army it encountered. 
This plan was judiciously based upon the 
conviction, that occupying a concentric 



90 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

position against an eccentric attack (or, in 
other words, operating within a circle 
whose diameter only his armies had to tra- 
verse, against an enemy whose communica- 
tions could only be kept up by making the 
circuit of its circumference), he could, with 
one very superior army, successively defeat 
several armies collectively manifold exceed- 
ing the whole force at his disposal. 

Gorgey found himself, by the above cir- 
cumstances, named to a command in which 
subsequent incidents induced Kossuth to 
confirm him. This main army Kossuth had 
reinforced by his best men and by all the 
means he could controul, being accustomed 
to say, " Whilst Gorgey's army wants any- 
thing, do not let any one ask me for a pair 
of shoes." 

Gorgey was unquestionably a man of 
great ability, who possessed a remarkable 



OF HUNGARY. 91 

i 

power of fascinating those with whom he 
came in contact, and who succeeded in de- 
ceiving (with few exceptions) every public 
man in Hungary, to a greater or less extent, 
inclusive of Kossuth himself. His military 
abilities were principally of the adminis- 
trative order, though, in fact, as almost 
from the commencement of the war, he was 
manoeuvring rather with a political, or 
factious object, or in concert with the enemy 
than against him, his powers in this respect 
were never fairly tested. A skilful and un- 
scrupulous party leader, in whom ambition 
and envy, developed by his sudden eleva- 
tion, had swallowed up all gratitude, sense 
of duty, or patriotic feeling, he conceived 
that, excepting for Kossuth, he could sway 
the destinies of Hungary, and hoped to do 
so, in opposition to him, by creating in his 
army a party favourable to military dictator- 



92 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

ship. Gorgey had been ordered by *Kossuth 
(when Kossuth quitted the army, to repair 
to the Diet and organize the military resis- 
tance of the country) to occupy Tyrnau, to 
fortify Raab, and to await there the junction 
of Maurice Perczel's force with his army. 
The first step of Gorgey was to endeavour 
to sacrifice Guyon, now Colonel, an Eng- 
lishman, whom he could not influence. 
Aware of his impetuous character, he sent 
him, with a vanguard of 1,500 men, to 
attack Tyrnau (against which he had once 
failed in consequence of mistaking the road), 
but detained the main body which should 
have followed the vanguard. Guyon was 
surrounded in the night by the whole army 
of Simonich, and only cut bis way through 
it by daring and good fortune, with heavy 
loss. Abandoning the intrenchments of 
Raab, on pretence of the hard frost setting 



OF HUNGARY. 93 

in, Gorgey exposed Perczel, who was making 
for that city, to be overwhelmed. Perczel, 
however, having received timely notice, 
marched eastward ; but Gorgey, following a 
parallel direction to the north, and with- 
out attempting to unite with or succour him, 
allowed his forces — which amounted to 
5,000 infantry and cavalry, and some thou- 
sand pike and scythe men — to be defeated 
and dispersed by the army of Prince Win- 
dischgratz. Kossuth, learning that the 
main Austrian army had pressed forward 
against Perczel, and that Gorgey was too 
far north to effect a junction with him in 
time, now ordered Gorgey to return by a 
forced march to Raab, where he might have 
overwhelmed the reserves of Windischgratz 
left in that city. This order he disobeyed. 
Furthermore Kossuth gave him positive in- 
structions to fight a battle, in any case, at 



94 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

some distance from Pesth, because, even if 
defeated, a fresh stand might be made at 
Buda, to cover the passage of the Danube 
(for which the Committee of Defence had 
taken every military precaution), whilst, if 
defeated at Pesth itself, the confusion would 
have endangered the passage of the river. 
Instead of fighting that battle, Gorgey re- 
tired directly to the capital, where he arrived 
on the 3rd of January. 



OF HUNGARY. 95 



THE DIET NEGOTIATES— KOSSUTH 
CONTINUES THE DEFENCE. 

When Gorgey was retreating upon Pesth, 
consternation seized the Diet. A majority 
of the representatives, believing resistance 
hopeless against such overwhelming odds, 
saw no alternative but making the best 
terms they could with Prince Windisch- 
gratz, who led them to believe in his wil- 
lingness to negotiate. Kossuth, although 
convinced both that effective resistance could 
be made, and that the Austrians would only 
treat for the purpose of gaining time to en- 
force unconditional submission, deferred to 
the express wish of the majority, which, by 
virtue of his powers as President of the 



96 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

Committee of Defence, he was not bound to 
consult, and agreed that they should send a 
deputation to endeavour to make terms ; 
but determined at the same time to retire 
with the Diet to Debretzin, behind the 
marshes of the Theiss, to prepare in any 
event for the defence of the country. 

Count Louis Bathyanyi, who had retired 
from Pesth on the 28th of September, had, 
after the unquestionable nomination of Jel- 
lachich, on the 3d of October, by the Em- 
peror, to extinguish the liberties of the 
country he ravaged, offered his services to 
M. Kossuth. The Count had repaired to 
the army, but, compelled by injuries through 
a fall from his horse to abandon his active 
duties, had resumed his seat in the Diet. 
Desponding where Kossuth saw hope, and 
credulous where he saw none, Bathyanyi 
was chosen to head the deputation sent to 



OF HUNGARY. 97 

the camp of the Field-Marshal, and started 
with his companions on his mission, whilst 
Kossuth with the Diet quitted Pesth on the 
3d of January, 1849, to retire to Debretzin, 
behind the marshes of the Theiss. 



98 THE PAST AND FUTURE 



BATHYANYI TREACHEROUSLY 
DETAINED. 

When Bathyanyi reached the head-quarters 
of Prince Windischgratz he discovered, as 
Kossuth had anticipated, that the Prince 
was only seeking to gain time. When 
Bathyanyi therefore determined to retire, 
although he had come over with a flag of 
truce, he was politely detained. When 
Windischgratz had made further progress, 
his captive was rigorously treated; at a 
subsequent period he was tried and con- 
demned to four years' imprisonment, and 
then, after the surrender of Comorn, tried 
over again on the same charges, sentenced 
to be hanged, and, having ineffectually 
opened the jugular vein, he was dragged 
out in that condition and shot. 



OF HUNGARY. 99 



GORGEY INTRIGUES AGAINST THE 
DIET. 

Gorgey manoeuvres to get beyond the reach 
of Kossuth and of the Diet. His treason- 
able proclamation — Unable to influence 
his troops— promotes his creatures, and 
forms a Party. Despairing of the cause, 
approaches the frontier for the supposed 
purpose of laying down his arms. Guyon 
delivers the army, by storming and carry- 
ing the Braniszko Pass. 

Gorgey, with his force which, after garri- 
soning Comorn, amounted to 25,000 men, 
ascended the bank of the Danube as far as 
Waitzen, and then continuing in a north- 
ward direction, struck into the mountain 
country. Gorgey being cut off from all 

f 2 



100 



THE PAST AND FUTURE 



communication with the Executive, attempt- 
ed to put into execution his design of form- 
ing a military party, and of establishing 
through it a Dictatorship. He addressed a 
proclamation to his troops, in which he de- 
clared that " as the Executive and the Diet 
had left JPesth without advising him, the 
army would act in future for itself." 

But, though Gorgey was a man of de- 
cided ability, he had lived so much in 
Austria that he did not understand his own 
countrymen, and had totally mistaken the 
spirit of his troops. The army, which re- 
mained thoroughly parliamentary, received 
in silence or with marked disapprobation 
the undutiful and factious suggestion he had 
made. Guyon, his second in command/, 
and Nagy-Sandor, the commander of his 
cavalry, said openly at his table, -" We hear 
there is some one amongst us disposed to 



OF HUNGARY. .101 

play the Caesar; lie will be in no want of a 
Brutus if he does." Gorgey, discovering 
his mistake, did not attempt in a direct 
manner to push matters further, but now 
turned his attention to forming a military 
party. For this purpose he selected those 
officers whose political morality had been 
tainted in the Austrian ranks, foreigners, 
soldiers of fortune, and weak or ambitious 
men, who were led away by the idea of 
sharing in an arbitrary military rule. He 
placed these men upon his staff, and gave 
them commands of regiments, squadrons, 
and battalions, where they could dissemi- 
nate his ideas. His ordinary conversation 
was to ridicule and epigrammatise the Exe- 
cutive and the Diet, and these or any other 
impressions he wished to convey, were 
eagerly repeated by his creatures and ad- 
mirers. This military or Gorgey party per- 



102 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

haps never exceeded 150 officers, and never, 
up to the last moment, succeeded in per- 
verting the fidelity of the men ; but it did 
succeed in deceiving, to a great extent, the 
Diet, the generals of the other armies, and 
Kossuth himself. The fact was, that from 
the position of these officers, it was princi- 
pally with them that they came in contact, 
and from them that the erroneous impres- 
sion was derived that the army was de- 
votedly attached to Gorgey. 

After some unsuccessful skirmishes with 
the enemy, Gorgey divided his army into two 
corps, and gave to both an eastward and 
parallel direction — he in person marching 
along the frontier with 15,000 men, whilst 
Guyon with 10,000 took the lower road. 
At this period Gorgey seems to have been 
disgusted with his want of success in carry- 
ing the army with him, and discouraged by 



OF HUNGARY. 103 

circumstances which might have disheartened 
a braver man. A glance at Map No. 2 will 
show that an enemy was in his rear, and 
that whilst the vast army of Windischgratz 
was moving on his flank at the foot of 
the mountain region (as it swept on from 
the Danube to the Theiss), another army 
under Schlick in front, occupied the passes 
and positions which must arrest the pro- 
gress of the Hungarian army. Under 
these circumstances, Gorgey had determined 
to give up the contest and lay down his 
arms ; and as he dared not surrender to 
Austria, with whom he entered here into ne- 
gotiations, there is strong reason to believe 
that he contemplated dashing across Gallicia 
and surrendering to the Russians, and that 
he first entered into communication with 
them merely for that purpose. No other 
supposition will account for his conduct at 



104 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

this period. Guy on sent in vain to point 
out to him how he might destroy a hostile 
corps within reach of his line of march, 
and afterward, when Gorgey refused to attend 
to his suggestion, under numerous disad- 
vantages attacked and dispersed it, capturing 
a thousand men. Guyon divined the truth, 
and had become satisfied that nothing could 
be hoped from Gorgey. Before him was the 
Braniszko Pass, occupied by 15,000 men, 
who, it was supposed, could have defended 
such a position against 100,000. Never- 
theless, with his 10,000 men, the only chance 
of the salvation of the army was in carrying 
these positions, which both corps would have 
been insufficient to attack. Guyon did not 
hesitate. The Hungarians, according to 
their custom, stormed with great gallantry, 
but were repulsed with great loss from these 
terrible positions. 



OF HUNGARY. 105 

Guyon, finding the case desperate, led in 
front his men again into the fire, whilst he 
pitilessly mowed down his own fugitives by 
the grape of his otherwise useless artillery in 
the rear. In fhis manner the Braniszko 
Pass was carried, and the enemy defeated 
and dispersed. When the intelligence 
reached Gorgey, he observed, "We have 
more luck than wit," but could no longer 
think of proposing to his army to surrender, 
if indeed, which is unlikely, be entertained 
any longer the idea. Meanwhile, Klapka 
advancing, had stormed and carried the 
bridge of Hidas Nemethi ; so that Schlick, 
who was retreating with the army in reserve 
at Kaschau, and the wreck of that defeated 
at Braniszko, had but one line of retreat 
from which Gorgey could have cut him oft*. 
At Torna, Colonel Pillar, who had been sent 
down by Gorgey, allowed Schlick, however, 



106 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

to escape him, and this general, one of the 
ablest in the Austrian army, was enabled, by 
his skill and his good fortune, to effect his 
junction, on the 27th of February, with the 
main army of Prince Windischgratz, which 
had been engaged since the preceding day 
with the main Hungarian army, of which 
the chief command had been given to the 
Polish General Dembinski, and whom 
Gorgey's corps had already joined. 



OF HUNGARY. 107 



DEMBINSKI AND THE BATTLE OF 
KAPOLNA. 

Character of Bembinski. Battle of Kapolna. 
Windischgratz announces a complete vic- 
tory, but on the fourth day obliged to re- 
tire. Gorgey, after disobeying the orders 
of his Commander-in-Chief, holds a court 
martial on him and arrests him. Szemere 
confirms the decree. Decision of Kossuth. 

Henry Dembinski had served in Napoleon's 
wars, and been named captain by him on 
the field of battle. In the Polish war of 
1831, he made head with a small force for a 
whole day, against the army of Diebitch, 
and was famous for a very masterly retreat 
he made through Lithuania, and which is 



1Q8 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

justly celebrated among feats of that de- 
scription in military history. Kossuth had 
been anxious to secure the service of a mili- 
tary celebrity for his country, and the more 
readily — considering the proximity of Aus- 
trian, and indeed of Russian Poland — ac- 
cepted Dembinski in his character of Pole. 
But time seems to have impaired the talents 
and even memory of this general, and to 
have made him querulous and violent. It 
was said of him, that he had been so praised 
for his retreat in Lithuania, seventeen years 
before, that he could think of nothing but 
retreating. 

Such was the man under whom, with 
Gorgey's corps for his right wing, Kiapka's 
for his left, and himself in the centre, was 
fought the battle of Kapolna, between the 
two main armies and the two Commanders- 
in-Chief. - 



OF HUNGARY. 109 

On the 26th, the village of Kapolna was 
attacked by the Austrians, who during the 
day, twice took it and were twice driven out 
of it, leaving behind them eight cannon. 
On the 27th, Schlick forced his way down 
through the Sirok pass, and joined Win- 
dischgratz, and Klapka was driven from his 
position ; reserves coming up, the day was 
restored, and both sides retired, but Prince 
Windischgratz hearing that Dembinski had 
retreated, concluded that the last army of 
the Hungarians was beaten, put a price on 
the head of Kossuth, and of the members 
of the Diet ; and sent off the joyful intelli- 
gence to the Imperial Court at Olmutz. 
Following up what he conceived to be his 
success, the masses of his cavalry were 
routed the next day by the Hussars, who 
captured their artillery. From eight to 
twelve thousand men were killed and 



110 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

wounded on both sides, during this long 
battle, which resulted in arresting the pro- 
gress of the main Austrian army, although 
Dembinski crossed the Theiss, and made 
amongst its marshes a retreat, which would 
have proved highly dangerous, had the 
Austrians, instead of preparing to retire, 
been in a condition to pursue. 

Much mystery hangs over the circum- 
stances connected with the battle of Kapolna. 
Gorgey and Klapka both allege that Dem- 
binski gave orders to the left wing intended 
for the right, and to the right wing intended 
for the left, over which, reciprocally, they 
had no control ; whilst Dembinski charges 
Gorgey with abandoning the positions as- 
signed to him, and acting in opposition to 
the orders he received, whereby the fate of 
the battle was compromised. As far as can 
be judged, blame attaches both to Dembinski 



OF HUNGARY. Ill 

and to Gorgey, who never again attempted a 
decisive blow. Gorgey said aloud to his 
officers and men, during the battle and sub- 
sequent retreat, "this is what happens 
through being commanded by foreigners 
and old women." When the army reached 
Tissa Fured, he convened a court martial to 
deliberate on the propriety of informing 
Dembinski that he had lost the confidence 
of the army, requesting him to resign, and 
declaring to him that he was a prisoner if 
he did not. 

Bartholomew Szemere was at this time 
with the army as Plenipotent Commissary 
of the Executive and of the Diet. Hearing 
of the court martial, and fearing that the 
army would come to a decision which would 
place it in collision with the government, he 
presented himself at the door of the council 
chamber, took his seat and sanctioned the 



112 



THE PAST AND FUTURE 



proceedings, thereby compromising Kossuth 
and the Diet. Dembinski refusing to re- 
sign, was placed under arrest. Kossuth, on 
receiving this intelligence, immediately came 
to the camp from Debretzin to decide upon 
the case. Gorgey commenced by saying : 
" If I were Dembinski and Dembinski were 
Gorgey, and that he had behaved to me as 
I have to him, I am free to confess that I 
would have shot him — you may judge, 
therefore, of the exigencies of a case which 
forced me to such a dereliction of my mili- 
tary duty." Kossuth did not restore to 
Dembinski his command, but neither did 
he confer it upon Gorgey, as that General 
had expected. 

Kossuth had by this time discovered that 
Gorgey was ambitious. When the news 
had reached the Diet at Debretzin, that 
Gorgey's army, of which no tidings had 



OF HUNGARY. 113 

been heard for several weeks, was coming 
down victorious from the Braniszko Pass, 
and through Kaschau in pursuit of Schlick, 
its enthusiasm knew no bounds, especially 
as the arrival of the victorious troops would 
afford a seasonable reinforcement against 
the overwhelming force with which Win- 
dischgratz was rapidly drawing nearer to 
the Theiss. 

When it became known a little later, 
that Gorgey was not in the battle, a vote 
of thanks was passed to Guyon, and it 
was decreed that the action should be com- 
memorated by a marble column, on which 
his name should be inscribed in bronze ; 
but still the credit of combination was given 
to his superior in command. When Kos- 
suth, however, saw Guyon, that general 
charged Gorgey with being either a traitor 
or a coward, and requested to be sent any- 



114 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

where, so that he should not have to serve 
under Gorgey's orders. 

Kossuth, who had become by this time 
acquainted with the factious proclamation 
which Gorgey had issued on quitting Pesth, 
exercised all his influence to induce Guyon 
to use discretion, offered him the command 
of Comorn, then invested by the Austrians, 
which he accepted, and into 'which, after 
many adventures, he made his way. Dread- 
ing the effect which a schism might have 
at this critical juncture, and believing that 
Gorgey had a greater influence than after- 
ward appeared to have been the case, with 
his army, Kossuth thought, by gratifying 
the ambition of that leader, to ensure his 
patriotic co-operation. With this view, he 
sent for and addressed him to this effect, 
"I now know you to be ambitious, but if 
you are ambitious, I have no ambition be- 



OF HUNGARY. 115 

yond that of seeing my country indepen- 
dent, and therefore, if instead of striving to 
make a party, you will devote your energies 
and talents solely to the task of securing its 
independence, and tell me what you want, 
whether to be made president, whether even 
to be made constitutional king, I myself 
will make a party for you, and the party 
I make will be no contemptible one, be- 
cause it will comprise three-fourths of the 
nation." 

But Gorgey either could not understand 
such abnegation, or his envy would not per- 
mit him to be beholden for anything to 
Kossuth ; at any rate, instead of responding 
frankly to this appeal, he replied, " That he 
was misjudged, that he would co-operate as 
heartily as he could, and all he asked, if he 
was so fortunate as to secure the national 
independence, was, a professor's chair of 



116 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

chemistry at Pesth." Nevertheless, Kos- 
suth took the precaution of this time ac- 
companying the army, to the chief command 
of which he appointed General Vetter, a 
scientific soldier. 



OF HUNGARY. 117 



DESTRUCTION OF THE ARMY OF 
PRINCE WINDISCHGRATZ. 

Kossuth marches with the army, Austrians 
driven from the Theiss to the Danube in 
a series of battles — Ottinger defeated at 
Szolnok — Windischgratz twice at Hatvan 
— at Tapio-Becze — at Issaseg and at 
Godollo — Kossuth returns to the Diet to 
prepare the Declaration of Independence. 

A few days after, Generals Damianiczs and 
Vecsey crossed the Theiss at Szolnok, and 
signally defeated, on two successive days, 
the corps of General Ottinger. The result 
of this defeat was, that the main Hungarian 
army marched down and crossed the Theiss 
at Cibakhaza (which is in the vicinity of 
Szolnok,) for the purpose of pushing along 



118 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

the lower road a little south of the railway 
line to Pesth, while Gorgey was instructed 
to move in a parallel direction, a little north- 
ward of the line, by which eventually the 
Hungarians marched to the Danube. 

This design was however abandoned, for 
reasons which the limits of this work do 
not permit the writer to detail, and the 
whole army (with the exception of a small 
corps under Asboth, which was directed to 
advance slowly along the railroad,) recrossed 
the Theiss, struck northward, and again 
crossing it, followed along the line of Win- 
dischgratz's retreat. At this time, Vetter 
fell ill, and consequently, Gorgey, as senior 
general, virtually assumed the command ; 
but Kossuth himself marched with the 
army, and here followed that series of vic- 
tories, by which the hosts of Windischgratz 
were destroyed, in a series of pitched battles 



OF HUNGARY. 119 

between the Theiss and Danube. On the 
approach of the Hungarians, they were first 
attacked by the Austrians at Hatvan, on the 
2d of April. The Austrians were repulsed 
in the first day's battle, and attacked and 
routed by the Hungarians in the second. At 
Tapio-Bicze, the corps of Klapka was at first 
defeated, but Damianiczs coming up, carried 
the positions of the enemy ; Windischgratz 
now prepared to make a stand in the strong 
positions of Issaseg, whose heights, covered 
by the intervening forests, and defended 
by batteries of 120 guns, were considered 
inexpugnable. After being three times re- 
pulsed, the Hungarians, on the 5th, carried 
the forest, dashed through the burning vil- 
lage, and stormed and captured battery 
after battery. 

On the following day, the Austrians, after 
a feeble resistance, abandoned Godollo, and 



120 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

retired precipitately upon Pesth. Here 
Kossuth occupied the room prepared for 
the now crest-fallen Prince, Field-marshal 
Alfred Windischgratz, " the conqueror of 
Bohemia and Vienna/' and slept at night 
in the bed he had quitted in the morning. 
It was now understood, that the power of 
the Austrians was thoroughly broken, and 
that if vigorously followed up, nothing could 
prevent the victorious Hungarian army from 
entering Vienna. 

It has been mentioned, that on the second 
day of the battle of Kapolna, Prince Win- 
dischgratz prematurely despatched to the 
court at Olmiitz an account of his decisive 
victory, and on this intelligence, the Austrian 
cabinet acted prematurely, by declaring the 
total abrogation of the Hungarian Constitu- 
tion, and independence, and its annexation 
to the Austrian Empire. At this period 



OF HUNGARY. 121 

the intrigues of the Archduchess Sophia, 
had succeeded in inducing the Emperor 
Ferdinand to abdicate (a third of the four 
sovereigns unseated by the great year of 
revolutions), and the heir apparent to resign 
his claims in favour of her youthful son, 
who had been proclaimed Emperor. 

To this imperial aggression Kossuth de- 
termined to reply by what is commonly 
termed the Declaration of Independence, 
but which should rather be stvled the de- 
position of the House of Hapsburg, because 
it only reiterates as a known fact, and does 
not attempt to establish an independence, 
which, up to the proclamation from Olmiitz, 
Austria had never ostensibly ceased to re- 
cognize, or ventured to deny. 

This step required, of course, the sanction 
of the Diet, and the presence of Kossuth at 
Debretzin. Kossuth therefore now left for 

G 



122 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

that city. Before quitting the army he 
acquainted it with his intention, which was 
received with universal approbation. Gorgey 
assented, Szemere made no opposition, Count 
Casimir Bathyanyi (cousin of Count Louis) 
diffidently dissented, but afterwards partici- 
pated as minister for foreign affairs in Kos- 
suth's government. Gorgey, as soon as 
Kossuth had departed, expressed himself, 
however, adverse to the measure ; Szemere, 
always bold in principles and timid in 
action, subsequently followed his example ; 
Bathyanyi has since recorded his protest to 
that effect. 

Nevertheless, this measure, which both 
houses of the Diet passed by a large ma- 
jority, was the boldest, most judicious, and 
popular ever proposed and carried by Kos- 
suth, except the emancipation of the pea- 
santry. It was seizing the opportunity le- 



OF HUNGARY. 1.23 

gitimately to break for ever that connection 
between Hungary and the House of Haps- 
burg, which had been a permanent calamity 
to the country through three centuries, and 
which, on no other occasion, could have 
been so irrevocably dissevered. 

Slaves as the Hungarians have always 
been to legality, they would not have con- 
sidered that bond broken by mere cruelty 
or oppression ; but the avowed attempt to 
incorporate them with Austria, and the 
solemn declaration of the deposition of the 
House of Hapsburg, made by the legiti- 
mately appointed representatives of the na- 
tion, was conclusive, and no human power 
could now ever reconcile the Hungarians to 
that perjured family. 

This step was to Hungary w^hat the exe- 
cution of Charles the First of England had 
been to kingly power in Europe. Up to 

62 



124 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

that time, many, and indeed most, kings 
had suffered violent deaths at the hands of 
their subjects ; but the slayer had been 
always regarded as a regicide assassin, or 
the royal victim as an usurper. 

It was the first occasion on which the 
principle " of right divine" was set at de- 
fiance, and irrecoverably shaken, by the 
execution of the sovereign as a king for 
treason toward his people. 

So in the past history of Hungary there 
had been many and successful rebellions 
and proclamations of principles, more or less 
republican, and Austria had temporized and 
negociated, but it was the first time that 
the deposition of the Imperial family for 
ever had been decreed. This explains the 
seeming anomaly, that a few politicians, who 
would venture on resistance, and even talk, 
like Szemere, about republican institutions, 



OE HUNGARY. 125 

before Kossuth had proposed them, were 
wanting in boldness to identify themselves 
with a measure by which they would have 
been irredeemably compromised. 

On the 14th of April the Diet decreed, 
for the subjoined and other reasons, more 
fully specified in the Declaration of the De- 
position of the House of Hapsburg — 

" That Hungary, with all its legal pro- 
vinces and counties, should be proclaimed 
as a free, independent, and self-subsistent 
State, whose integrity and unity can never 
be attacked. 

" That the dynasty of Hapsburg-Lorrain, 
which treacherously and perfidiously took 
up arms against the Hungarian nation, 
tried to divide the country, to annihilate the 
constitution, to produce hatred between dif- 
ferent races, and which was even so shame- 
less as to call in a foreign power (Russia) 



126 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

to massacre its subjects, which in this way- 
has torn in pieces the Pragmatic sanction, 
which has violated every mutual treaty, — 
this faithless dynasty of Hapsburg-Lorrain 
should be deposed for ever as ruler in Hun- 
gary and all its legal provinces and coun- 
tries, — should be exiled and banished for 
ever from all the territories of Hungary, and 
should never be allowed the privilege of 
Hungarian citizenship. This banishment 
should be proclaimed in the name of the 
whole Hungarian nation. 

" That the Hungarian nation being, by a 
holy, unalienable right, self-subsistent, free, 
and independent, may proclaim its decided 
will to keep peace and friendship with all 
nations of the w r orld, so long as its rights 
are not violated ; to keep particularly peace 
and friendship with those people who were 
before united with Hungary, under the 



OF HUNGARY. 127 

same ruler; also with the neighbouring 
Turkish and Italian countries, and to make 
treaties and alliances with them, founded on 
mutual interests. 

" That the future system of government, 
with its particularities, shall be deliberated 
and decided by the National Assembly. 
Until the new principles of government are 
deliberated upon and accepted, a president 
and responsible ministers should be elected 
and invested with the executive power." 

That president was Kossuth, elected to 
the office by the style of governor of Hun- 
gary, and invested by the Diet with Dicta-; 
torial powers, which, unhappily for his 
country, he subsequently too much hesitated, 
to exercise. 

Before quitting the army at Godollo, 
Kossuth had given his instructions to Gor-r 
gey, who had to some extent reassured hkqi 



128 THE PAS f | AND FUTURE 

by his conduct, and on whose fidelity Kos- 
suth thought that the frank proposition he 
made enabled him to rely, although now 
convinced that his military capacity was 
rather administrative than executive. Kos- 
"suth had perceived that the various battles 
had been rather gained by the enthusiasm 
of the men, and by tactics on the field, than 
by those stratagetical combinations by which 
whole armies are cut off, and Gorgey had 
modestly admitted " that he was not a 
general yet, though he hoped some day to 
become one," and willingly accepted the 
ministry of war, for which he was admirably 
qualified, retaining only his command until 
a Commander-in-Chief could be selected. 
During the time that Kossuth accompanied 
the army, he endeavoured, with some suc- 
cess, to make him believe that he requited 
by his fidelity the trust which had been re- 



OF HUNGARY. 129 

posed in him : — One morning, for instance, 
Kossuth found him stretched, sleeping on 
his cloak, across the threshold of his (Kos- 
suth's) apartment; and on wakening him 
up, the general remarked, with simulated 
effusion, " Where could I be better, than 
guarding the safety of Hungary's defender?" 

At this time, besides that the presence of 
Kossuth was imperatively required at De- 
bretzin, nothing remained but vigorously to 
follow up into the Austrian territory the 
shattered remains of the invading army ; 
and he therefore gave to Gorgey, without 
attempting to prescribe the details of their 
execution, the following general orders, viz : 

Firstly, to relieve the garrison of Comorn, 
closely invested since December, and to raise 
the siege. Secondly, taking with him a part 
of that garrison, to follow up the main 
Austrian army to Pesth, if it went towards 

g 3 



130 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

Pesth ; but if, as there was every reason to 
suppose, it retreated across the frontier, to 
pursue it without intermission to Vienna. 
In this case he was to leave 12,000 men 
to observe the Austrian garrison in Buda 
(opposite to and indeed suburb of the city 
of Pesth), and who, if that garrison did not 
surrender, were to besiege it. 



OF HUNGARY. 13.1 



WRECK OF THE ARMY OF WIN- 
DISCHGRATZ— DRIVEN 0VERTHE 
FRONTIER. 

Austrians defeated in four actions by Aulich 
— Defeated at Waiizen and at Gros- 
Szarlo. Defeated by the garrison of 
Comorn — -defeated at Szony and driven 
across the frontier. Gorgey, to protract 
the campaign, does not pursue them, but 
besieges Buda in disobedience to his orders, 
loses thereby nearly seven weeks, allows 
the Austrians to rally and the Russians to 
come down. 

Aulich, in following up the Austrians 
whom he easily defeated in four successive 
actions, had reached Pesth. Kossuth, after 
quitting the army, had written to recom- 



132 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

mend to him, if it did not interfere with 
the instructions of Gorgey, his commander, 
to seize the island below Pesth, on the 
Danube, and erect there batteries, as Jel- 
lachich, who was in Pesth, would probably 
retire that way. At the same time he ad- 
vised Gorgey of the counsel he had given. 
Gorgey, however, frustrated this arrange- 
ment, and Jellachich, as Kossuth had fore- 
seen, escaped with 7,000 men down the 
Danube upon rafts. The rest of the Aus- 
trian forces evacuated Pesth, leaving only in 
Buda a garrison of 6,000 men under Hentze. 
The main Hungarian army now pushed 
forward to relieve Comorn. General Gotz, 
at Waitzen, had drawn up 12,000 men, but 
General Damianicz attacked them with the 
vanguard which he commanded, and drove 
them from their positions. Reinforcements 
having come up he carried the town itself 



OF HUNGARY. 133 

by storm, again attacked them outside the 
town, where they had formed in battle, and 
drove them across the river with the loss of 
their baggage, artillery, 500 prisoners, and 
Gotz, their general, left dead upon the field. 
The Hungarian army now made a sweep 
northward to enable it to cross the river 
Gran (which empties itself into the Danube), 
which the Austrians made no attempt to 
defend, though they were discovered on the 
19th of April, drawn up in battle before 
the town of Gros-Szarlo to the number of 
34,000 men, under the command of Wohlge- 
muth and Benedek. They were immediately 
attacked by Damianicz and Klapka, with 
20,000 men. Gros-Szarlo was stormed and 
taken, an attempt to turn the Hungarian 
flank repulsed, and the Austrians driven 
from their position with a loss of many 
guns, 3000 prisoners, and 3000 killed. 



134 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

Amongst the latter were many grenadiers 
of the guard, whose duty is to watch over 
the personal safety of the Emperor, but 
who had been sent from Olmiitz to the 
number of 8,000 — to such straits was the 
Imperial cabinet already driven — and had 
arrived upon the field in time to make 
the abortive attempt to turn the Hungarian 
flank, which has been mentioned. 

General Guyon, who, with a handful of 
horsemen, had cut his way into Comorn, 
and was now in command of that fortress, 
sallied on the approach of the main army, 
and defeating the Austrians, whom he 
drove to Aranyos, clearing the left bank 
of the Danube. There remained only to 
attack the Austrians on the other side of 
the river. 

In anticipation of Gorgey's arrival, Guyon 
had thrown over a bridge, upon which Gor- 



OF HUNGARY. 135 

gey refused to trust his men, though Guyon 
crossed over it with troops and heavy guns, 
In this manner much time was lost, w T hilst 
a new bridge was being constructed. It 
w r as not till the night of the 25th that the 
Hungarians stormed and carried old and new 
Szony, opposite to Comorn, and on the 26th 
that the corps of Damianicz, Klapka, and 
Nagy-Sandor, with his cavalry, passed over 
and immediately attacked the Austrian Field 
Marshal, Welden. During the battle, Gor- 
gey, with his best troops, remained on the 
other side of the river. Welden was driven 
from his positions with the loss of his camp, 
a portion of his artillery, 4,000 dead, and 
several thousand prisoners. The same day 
he retreated, by forced marches, across the 
Austrian frontier. 

If at this time Gorgey had acted in obe- 
dience to the instructions given him by 



136 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

Kossuth, he might have crossed the Austrian 
frontier on the 29th, and at latest have been 
before Vienna on the 2d of May. There 
remained indeed now no force in the Aus- 
trian Empire, except the army of Radetsky 
in Italy, which could have offered any serious 
opposition to his march. 

But this termination of the struggle 
would have cut short the ambitious hopes 
of Gorgey, and was repugnant to the envious 
feeling which he entertained toward the 
governor of Hungary. It is evident from 
his subsequent conduct that he determined 
to protract the campaign, whether in the 
belief that opportunities would be thereby 
still afforded him of establishing a military 
dictatorship, or that he had already made 
that compact with the Russians, which there 
is some reason to believe he only entered 
into a little later. 



OP HUNGARY. 137 

With the obvious view, from whatever 
motive, of protracting the campaign, Gor- 
gey sent forward one corps to Raab, and 
another into the Schutt island, and after 
losing a week at Comorn marched upon 
Pesth. 

He had received express orders to leave 
12,000 men before Buda, and to march 
forward with all his forces in pursuit of the 
Austrians ; instead of this, he sent 12,000 
men forward, and marched on Buda with 
35,000 men, inclusive of 7000 Hussars, 
quite useless in a siege, but without bringing 
with him an indispensable battering train, 
although there were many hundred heavy 
guns in Comorn. 

Hentze, the Austrian commander of Buda, 
who had 6,000 men, and 274 pieces of 
cannon, refused to surrender, and bombarded 
Pesth. Gorgey having made an ineffectual 



138 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

attempt to storm Buda, wrote to Kossuth 
that he had no heavy guns, and was about 
to raise the siege. He was answered by 
Kossuth, that since he had set down before 
the place, to avoid the injurious moral effect 
of abandoning it in the hands of the enemy, 
he must take it ; and he was asked, if he 
had no heavy guns, why he did not get them 
from Comorn ? 

The heavy guns were brought — the walls 
battered in breach — Buda stormed and 
taken on the 21st of May — Hentze mortally 
wounded, and 5000 prisoners captured, 
although a portion of Pesth had been de- 
stroyed, and one of the last acts of Hentze 
had been to attempt wantonly to blow up 
the magnificent chain bridge which connects 
Pesth with Buda — an attempt only frus- 
trated by the death of the Austrian engineer. 

Gorgey afterward speciously alleged, and 



OF HUNGARY. 139 

many of his partizans and admirers have 
repeated after him, that this delay before 
Pesth was fatal to the cause, but that he 
undertook the siege by the especial com- 
mand of Kossuth, a part of whose second 
order they quote to that effect. 

Gorgey, before marching on Pesth, before 
Comorn, and on the Schutt Island, lost six 
weeks irretrievable to the cause, having only 
attacked beyond the Waag and Neuhausler, 
Danube, on the 16th of July, the recruited 
forces of the Austrians, whom, by this time, 
the Russians had come down through Aus- 
tria to assist, and whose frontier he should 
have crossed at the end of April. Here, as 
far as Gorgey is concerned, ends the second 
invasion. 

After his return to Comorn, he wasted 
his time in petty conflicts with small Aus- 
trian corps on the Schutt Island, which he 



140 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

might, at any time, have cleared at once. 
It was his custom to engage the enemy with 
a very inferior force, and after a day's de- 
sultory fighting, to enter personally into 
action, surrounded by a brilliant staff, and 
at the head of some picked regiments, the 
cry being raised by his partizans, " Hurrah 
for victory ! here comes Gorgey ;" when, of 
course, the enemy was easily discomfited. 



OF HUNGARY. 141 



THE SOUTHERN ARMY. 

The Squthern Austrian army defeated by 
Perczel — lines of St. Tamas stormed and 
carried. The enemy driven to the frontier 
fortresses by the Magyars. 

Meanwhile, in the south, very sanguinary 
engagements had taken place between the 
Magyars, under Percszel, and the Southern 
Austrian army, of which the most formidable 
part consisted of Turkish Serbians. 

Turkish Serbia is nominally a Turkish 
province, but the Porte has conceded to it a 
constitution, in virtue of which, on conside- 
ration of a small tribute of about 125,000 
dollars, it is allowed to govern itself as it 
chooses. A Turkish garrison occupies the 



142 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

citadel of Belgrade, and two . other points 
upon the river; but without the precincts 
of these fortifications, no Turk is allowed to 
hold property, nor even to take up his re- 
sidence on the Serbian territory. 

This constitution, the Turkish govern- 
ment, according to its custom, has scrupu- 
lously respected; one of the chief reasons 
that the Turkish empire has held together 
being, that it never, like all the other con- 
tinental governments of Europe, attempts to 
retract and to resume concessions it has 
been forced to make, and that it is a ruling 
principle of its policy to respect, what is 
termed there, " the right of insurrection/ 5 
The Serbians are about one million in num- 
ber, ruled by a native prince and native 
Senate. The whole population may be con- 
sidered prosperous. Every man is armed. 
. In character they are brave and enterprising, 



OF HUNGARY. 143 

although no match for the Magyars — 
shrewd, selfish, and filled with political am- 
bition. Knichanin, who soon after led the 
Serbian sympathisers, was Commander-in- 
Chief of the small regular army kept up by 
the Serbian government. 

It was soon obvious, that although usually 
many times more numerous than the Mag- 
yars, this southern army stood no chance 
with them in the field. It, therefore, en- 
trenched and fortified, in strong positions, 
like those of the lines of St. Tamas, on the 
canal which unites the Danube and the 
Theiss, or the famous position of Titel, at 
the point of confluence of the Theiss into 
the Danube, covered by an inaccessible 
marsh, in which the remains of this southern 
army, when finally routed and dispersed, 
took refuge, and from whence it could never 
be expelled. When the Austrian army 



144 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

ventured into the open field, it was easily 
defeated. When it retired behind its en- 
trenchments, these were stormed by Perczel, 
who was frequently repulsed with loss. "At 
length, after carrying several strong posi- 
tions, he took by storm the famous lines of 
San Tamas, slaughtering 6,000 Serbians in 
the trenches. In the South, therefore, ex- 
cept on two or three frontier points, where 
protected by fortresses or fortifications, this 
southern army had been driven, like the 
army of Windischgratz, from the Hungarian 
territory. Bern had already expulsed both 
the Austrian and Russian armies from Tran- 
sylvania, in one of the most marvellous 
campaigns recorded in the military annals. 



OF HUNGARY. 145 



BEM'S CAMPAIGN IN TRANSYL- 
VANIA. 

Bem daringly attempted, with 4,000 men, 
the conquest of Transylvania, defended by 
15,000 Austrian regulars and 30,000 Wal- 
lachian insurgents, to whose aid 10,000 or 
12,000 Russians were called in shortly 
after. A few hundred men, under General 
Czetz, had obstinately maintained them- 
selves in a strong position near Thorda, one 
of the western passes, which facilitated to 
some extent his movement, and he knew 
that he could count on the warlike spirit of 
the Szeklers, if he could reach them ; but 
their country is situated at the south-eastern 
extremity of Transylvania. Descending 

H 



146 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

through the passes of Nagy Banya, toward 
the end of December, 1848, he defeated 
one of Puchner's generals at Sibo and at 
Deecz, and marched on Clausenburg, which 
Puchner evacuated on his approach, to con- 
centrate his forces and overwhelm the in- 
vader. Bern, instead of following him up, 
marched to Bistriz, where he attacked and 
defeated Urban, and drove him over the 
frontier, and then came down to Herman- 
stadt in the south, which, with a far inferior 
force, he tried to carry by assault against 
Puchner's army. Repulsed with loss, he 
retired toward Visagna, and pushed forward 
a small corps as far as Muhlenbach near 
Carlsburg. Attacked by overwhelming 
forces he was defeated at Visagna, one wing 
of his army cut off and dispersed, whilst the 
corps he had detached to Muhlenbach was 
overpowered by the garrison of Carlsburg, 



OF HUNGARY. 147 

which massacred both the prisoners and the 
fugitive Magyar families. Cut off on all 
sides, and reduced to 1,200 men, Bern was 
summoned to lay down his arms. But he 
had sent to Hungary for reinforcements, 
which he calculated must at this time be 
coming through the Maros passes ; he there- 
fore turned westward, carried Muhlenbach 
by storm, and entrenched himself a little 
further on, till the reinforcements which 
Kossuth had sent could join him. The van- 
guard of these reinforcements having reached 
him, he dispatched Colonel Count Bethlen, 
who had commanded one wing of his army 
in most of the actions fought, to bring up 
the remainder. Bethlen, who started on an 
English hunter, and went straight across the 
country, promised to reach the reinforcing 
army before midnight. Bern calculated that 
they might be upon the ground by eight in 

h 2 



148 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

the morning, and attacked in consequence ; 
but the road was blocked up by many 
thousand waggons full of fugitives, so that 
Bethlen, though he started with the troops 
at the hour agreed upon, was several hours 
longer on the road than had been calculated. 
In the mean time Bern had been over- 
whelmed, had lost a part of his artillery, 
and was forced precipitately to retreat, 
which he did till he met Bethlen with his 
troops, which now raised the force of Bern 
to 6,000 men. With these, turning fiercely 
on the enemy, he repulsed him. Bern had 
his finger smashed by a bullet in this action, 
and in passing through the next village, 
after the enemy was repulsed, called out 
from his horse, " For some fellow to come 
and cut that off for him !" 

Following up Puchner, Bern now defeated 
him with great slaughter at Piski, and forced 



OF HUNGARY. 149 

him to retire in confusion upon Her- 
manstadt, which it was now expected that 
Bern would again attack. Instead of march- 
ing toward Hermanstadt, however, Bern 
passed under the guns of Carlsburg, struck 
northward till he reached Gorfalva, and 
placed himself in communication with the 
Szeklers. Meanwhile, from 10,000 to 12,000 
Russians had entered through the southern 
passes, and Urban, with a large force, had 
re-entered Transylvania through the pass of 
Bistriz, where he easily defeated a small 
body left by Bern in observation. 

Bern immediately marched on Bistriz, 
defeated Urban, again drove him across the 
frontier, and returned to the environs of 
Megyes and Gorfalva. 

Meanwhile, Puchner, whose whole force 
was disposable by the arrival of the Rus- 
sians, and who knew that Urban had enter- 



150 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

ed by the Bistriz pass, but was ignorant of 
his defeat — so rapid had been Bern's move- 
ments — now manoeuvred to turn Bern's 
position, and to get in his rear, exercising 
much ingenuity to cut himself off from his 
own basis of operation. Bern no sooner 
perceived the error than he came down by 
forced marches upon Hermanstadt, garri- 
soned by 6,000 Russians, and took the city 
by assault, capturing or killing half their 
number, and obliging the remainder to 
escape during the night through the pass 
of the Rothenthurm into Wallachia, with 
the loss of their baggage and artillery. 

Puchner, terrified by the intelligence that 
whilst he was pottering about to cut Bern 
off, that general had defeated Urban in the 
north and the Russians in the south, now 
retreated in great discouragement upon 
Cronstadt, where Bern and his victorious 



OF HUNGARY. 151 

army arrived on the 19th of March, and 
drove Austrians and Russians together, pre- 
cipitately out of Transylvania, which he had 
cleared of 55,000 enemies in an eleven 
weeks' campaign. Bern was seconded by 
three admirable officers, General Czetz, Colo- 
nel Gall, and Count Bethlen. 

Such, in the north-west and centre, in 
the south and in the east, was the result of 
the second invasion of Hungary, which, like 
the first, left the Austrian Empire at the 
mercy of that country, an opportunity of 
which Hungary was prevented from profit- 
ing by the perverseness of one of her own 
children. 



152 THE PAST AND FUTURE 



THIRD INVASION. 

With 375,000 men against 140,000. 
Austria, to obtain the aid of Russia, 
surrenders her Independence to the Tsar. 
Hesitation of Russia — Nicholas only de- 
termined to intervene, when assured of 
the connivance of Gorgey. 

The third invasion of Hungary took place 
in consequence of a compact, constituting 
one of the most remarkable political events 
of modern times, and involving no less than 
the surrender of Austrian independence to 
Russia, together with the independence of 
all the other European despotisms. 

Previously, Austria and Russia, though 
making common causes to oppress liberty, 



OF HUNGARY. 153 

and retard progress, had been opposed oil 
many points, where their interests were at 
variance. Prussia maintained an indepen- 
dent action, by leaning alternately on one 
or the other of these adverse powers. The 
petty German powers could coquette al- 
ternately with Prussia and with Austria. 
Naples, Tuscany, Modena, and the Papacy, 
or rather it should be said, the Jesuits, who, 
by this time, had recovered their influence, 
forfeited since the death of the last pope, 
looked exclusively to Austria for protection. 
With the surrender of Austrian indepen- 
dence, that of all these governments became 
forfeited to Russia, so that at this moment 
she commands as absolutely at Rome, in 
Vienna, in Berlin, and at Naples, as in her 
own provinces of Moscow or Kazan. It 
was not without a struggle, that the Princes 
of the House of Hapsburg consented to 

h 3 



154 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

decline into hereditary pro-consuls of the 
Russian Empire ; but there was no alter- 
native. An unexpected good fortune only 
had prevented the victorious Magyars from 
marching to Vienna, possessing themselves 
of the resources of the Empire, and opening 
a communication with Italy. Possessed of 
arms sufficient, they would have had within 
a month 300,000 men in the field, against 
whom there was nothing to make head, but 
Radetsky's army in Italy, whose rear, with 
such an opportunity, the Italians would have 
again assailed. 

Neither was this protectorate so easily 
conceded. Great as were the prospects it 
afforded to the ambition of the Tsar, it was 
accompanied by corresponding perils. Rus- 
sia is not the power which it is the constant 
aim of her diplomacy to make the world 
believe she is. A glance at map No. 5, will 



OF HUNGARY. 155 

suggest some idea of the dangers which 
beset, and of the causes of weakness which 
enfeeble her. She is said to have a million 
of men on paper — in reality they do not 
amount to 600,000. 

So great and incorrigible is the peculation 
pervading all branches of the service, and so 
fatally does it operate on the providing and 
provisioning of the troops, that a Russian 
regiment starting from the centre of the 
Empire, often loses more men before reach- 
ing an enemy's country, than British regi- 
ments lost, on the average, during five years' 
campaigning in the Iberian peninsula. 

Russia has never, since 1815 (and then 
all the nations of Europe were with their 
governments against Napoleon), been able 
to send more than 200,000 men across her 
frontier, nor to assemble 100,000 on one 
battle field. 



156 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

It would not do to send any but the best 
troops into Hungary, and, if these were 
beaten, the war would be transferred into 
Poland, where 13,000,000 of Poles would 
seize the opportunity to rise against the 
hated rule of Russia. 

Furthermore, a widely ramified conspiracy 
was known to have been organized, and set 
on foot, amongst the Russian nobles. It 
may appear strange to western readers, that 
a conspiracy could be known to exist in 
Russia, and yet remain unpunished. But, 
in a country where, among certain classes, 
every tenth man is through choice or com- 
pulsion a police spy, the art of conspiring 
has been pushed to such perfection, that the 
discovery of what is called "an outer circle/' 
gives no clue to more important members 
and leaders ; and hence, in hopes of getting 
at the latter, the humbler class of the in- 



OF HUNGARY. 157 

itiated have sometimes been left undisturbed 
by the police for years, 

Many Russian officers of high rank after- 
ward offered the Hungarian government to 
pass over with their troops, in the event of 
their leader being defeated in a decisive 
battle ; and the proof of the existence of the 
conspiracy mentioned, may be found in the 
sentences of death and exile to Siberia, pub- 
lished in the " Gazette de St. Petersburg" 
in the ensuing winter. 

For these reasons, at an imperial council, 
over which the Emperor Nicholas in person 
presided, all his councillors, excepting two, 
voted against intervention in Hungary, as 
periling the existence of the Empire, and 
Eield-marshal Prince Paskiewitch, who was 
destined to command the Russian expedi- 
tion, was one of those most warmly op- 
posed to it. 



158 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

The Emperor, however, remarked, that not- 
withstanding the excellent arguments they 
set forth, he had determined upon inter- 
vention, for reasons known only to himself. 

Experience had long since taught him, 
that although he possessed wonderful facili- 
ties for discovering the secrets of other 
cabinets, he had never been able to count 
on preserving those of his own. 

Now, there is the strongest ground, based 
on circumstantial evidence, for believing 
that these " reasons " to which the Emperor 
Nicholas alluded, were an understanding 
which he had already entered into with 
Gorgey. 

Gorgey's frequent intercommunication 
with the Russian Generals, during the en- 
suing campaign ; his despatches to Paskie- 
witch, discovered on the person of a female 
relative repairing to the Russian head- 



OF HUNGARY. 159 

quarters, were not required to prove, beyond 
all doubt, that such a compact did exist, 
because this is abundantly established by 
his general conduct, by his movements, and 
by that of the enemy, which cannot pos- 
sibly be accounted for on any other sup- 
position. 

It may perhaps be advisable at once, to 
state here, in extenuation of his guilt, which, 
even with this palliation, is sufficiently great 
to hand his name down as a by- word of ex- 
ecration to posterity, that there is every 
reason to believe that Gorgey was not ac- 
tuated by any mercenary motives in his 
betrayal, and that he neither stipulated for, 
nor received his " thirty pieces of silver?' 
It is also more than probable, that he had 
no idea of giving his country and com- 
panions in arms, to be bound and manacled 
by Russia, whilst Austria glutted her revenge 



160 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

upon them, but was himself, to a great ex- 
tent, deceived by Russian diplomacy, which 
held out to him the prospect of a constitu- 
tional, or at least independent monarchy, 
under a Russian prince, to which he thought 
to play the part of a sort of Monk. 

At any rate, from the moment of the 
march of the Russians to the relief of Aus- 
tria, every move he made was — as far as 
his fear of being treated by his own army, 
like Dumourier, permitted — -exactly what 
his adversaries could have desired. 



Or HUNGARY. 161 



DEFENCE FRUSTRATED BY TREA- 
SONABLE DISOBEDIENCE OF 
GORGEY. 

Forces brought to bear against Hungary.* 
Gorgey makes a desultory attack on the 

frontier- — ordered by Kossuth to march 
immediately against Paskiewitch — Re- 
mains behind, on the contrary , to let the 
Austro-Russian army come up with him — 

fights a bloody battle at Acz under suspi- 
cious circumstances — again attacks the 
enemy without other object than to allow 
Paskieioitch to come up — Hungarian paper 
money. 

In estimating the forces, moral and material, 
brought to bear against Hungary in the 
third invasion, the complicity of Gorgey 



162 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

with the invaders is an element which, 
above all, should be taken into account, be- 
cause without that advantage over the Hun- 
garians, I think that a succinct narration of 
the campaign will satisfactorily show the 
reader, that the third combined inroad of 
Austrians and Russians would have resulted 
in the same confusion and disaster as the 
first and second invasions. 

The third invasion of Hungary took 
place with from 375,000 to 400,000 men, 
of whom, nearly 300,000 were regular 
troops, out of which 150,000 were Rus- 
sians. The rest consisted of Turkish Ser- 
bians, Hungarian Serbians, Transylvanian 
Wallacks, Sclavonians, and Croats. 

Tp oppose these forces, the Hungarians 
had now 140,000 armed men, of whom 
50,000 might not only be termed dis- 
ciplined and veteran soldiers, having fought 



OF HUNGARY. 163 

victoriously through the last campaigns, 
but constituted the finest troops on the 
continent of Europe. They were in pos- 
session of the strong fortress of Peter- 
wardein, and the impregnable fortress of 
Comorn — Arad surrendered during the 
campaign to the besieging Hungarian army. 
Hungary was now assailed from four dif- 
ferent quarters. — From the Austrian frontier 
(opposite Vienna), by 75,000 Austrians, 
under the command of the young Emperor 
and Marshal Haynau, and by 25,000 Rus- 
sians under Paniutin. From the frontier of 
Austrian Poland, by the Russian Com- 
mander-in-Chief, Field-marshal Prince Pas- 
kiewitch, who marched down through the 
passes of Dukla with 80,000 men. In the 
south by Jellachich, who, between regular 
troops, insurgents, Turkish Serbians, and 
the garrisons of Esseg and Temesvar, had 



164 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

upward of 100,000 men. On the eastern 
or Transylvanian side, by 35,000 Russians, 
under Rudiger and Luders, by 20,000 Aus- 
trians and 30,000 Wallachians, making 
85,000 men. This is without taking into 
account various irregular corps, brought 
successively to reinforce the various armies, 
or employed for a time. 

The great northern passes through the 
Carpathians, by which the main Russian ex- 
pedition was descending, can only be pro- 
perly commanded from Dukla, on the Galli- 
cian side. Kossuth had been inclined to 
seize and occupy this position, and to carry 
the w^ar into Gallicia ; but a timid party in 
the Diet alleged, that Dukla being in Aus- 
trian Poland, which adjoined Russian Po- 
land, it would be affording Russia a pretext 
to interfere. At this time, Cavaignac, the 
French president, was receiving assurances, 



OF HUNGARY. 165 

that the Russian intervention in Transylvania 
had only taken place on the demand of the 
inhabitants, and without the authorization of 
the Russian cabinet ; and Sir Stratford Can- 
ning, the British Ambassador at Constanti- 
nople, had been assured by the Russian 
Ambassador, Mr. Titof — and repeated to 
his fellow diplomatists his conviction of the 
truth of the assurance — that Russia had no 
intention of interfering in Hungary. 

Whether or not Russia adopted this de- 
termination, Kossuth, in the first instance, 
counted on overturning the Austrian Em- 
pire, before the armies of the Tsar could have 
been brought into the field. When the 
delays of Gorgey had allowed Austria to 
recruit her strength, and Russian troops to 
come down to her assistance, he still reckoned 
confidently on the one invincible army he 
had got together, (w T hich, after all, never was 



166 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

fairly beaten, but betrayed), and on a general 
system of defence, which had been success- 
ful in the second invasion, and which there 
is every reason to conclude would have been 
so in the third, but for the disobedience and 
treachery which frustrated the combination. 

The third invasion may, properly speak- 
ing, be considered to begin w T ith the attack, 
tardily and desultory made by Gorgey, wdth 
a part of his force, near the frontier, between 
six and seven weeks after he should have 
been there, and when, instead of finding 
20,000 or 30,000 broken-spirited and ha- 
rassed troops to oppose him, he had near 
120,000 Russians and Austrians to con- 
tend with. 

Gorgey, from the 16th of June to the 
20th, had pushed forward, across the rivers 
Waag and Neuhausler-Danube, small corps, 
which were in general successively repulsed, 



OF HUNGARY. 167 

and gave the enemy due warning, and full 
time, to concentrate forces which enabled 
them, four-fold, to overmatch the Hungarians 
in the field — Gorgey himself, the last days 
operating with his picked troops, and being 
victorious where he fought, at Szered, from 
whence, however, on the following day, over- 
whelming numbers obliged him to retreat. 

The repulse of this attack, on what may 
be termed the Austrian frontier line, was 
followed by the Austrians and Russians as- 
suming the offensive, a few days later, by 
attacking Raab, which, after a hard days 
fighting, its garrison of 6,000 evacuated, 
retreating on Comorn, whilst Kmetty, one 
of the bravest of the Hungarian generals, 
was cut off with 5,000 men, and obliged to 
retreat upon the Hungarian army of the 
south. 

Now, Gorgey, who had so long delayed 



168 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

attacking the frontier line of the Austrians, 
when ordered to do so, actually fought what 
may be termed the battle of Szered, when 
positively commanded by the , government 
not to give battle there. 

That is to say, that as soon as Kossuth 
found that Gorgey had delayed to cross the 
frontier till Russian reinforcements had 
come down, and that he was assured that 
Paskiewitch was about to invade Hungary 
from Gallicia, he (Kossuth) had formed 
fresh combinations, in pursuance of which 
Gorgey had been ordered to fall back. 
When the disobedience of Gorgey had 
rendered this impossible, Kossuth peremp- 
torily commanded him to retire on Pesth 
by forced marches, with all his troops, take 
there the railroad to Szolnok, where he 
would find an army under Perczel, and with 
this combined force fall upon Paskiewitch, 



OF HUNGARY. 109 

as he was descending from the passes of the 
northern hill country. 

Gorgey, at the time he received this or- 
der, had under his controul more than half 
of the military force of Hungary in numbers, 
and three-fourths of its strength. After 
leaving a sufficient garrison to defend Co- 
morn, he might have marched with from 
60,000 to 70,000 fighting men, and at Szol- 
nok have united with from 30,000 to 40,000 
more, of whom half were efficiently armed, 
and all would have proved useful auxiliaries. 

By obeying the instructions (or rather, it 
should now be said, the peremptory com- 
mands) of Kossuth, he w r ould, therefore, 
have been able to fall, with a great supe*. 
riority of force, upon that very army of 
Paskiewitch, w r hich subsequently, with little 
more than half of his chosen troops, (dis- 
heartened by three sanguinary and bootless 

i 



170 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

battles, and a discouraging defeat,) he easily 
drove before him, when forced to attack it. 

Can it reasonably be doubted that a 
serious and vigorous attack, by 100,000 
men, unconquered and undiscouraged, would 
have failed to destroy Paskiewitch ? and 
Paskiewitch beaten, the victorious Magyars 
would have turned round on the Austro- 
Russian army of Haynau, and Paniutin, 
which it will be seen too that they proved 
at Acz their ability to defeat, with little 
more than half its numbers. 

The whole conduct of Gorgey, from the 
time of the first appearance of the Russians 
in Hungary, however perplexing it may 
have appeared at the time to his companions 
in arms, bears, when afterward reviewed 
with a comparison of dates and facts, in 
every act the impress of unmistakeable con- 
nivance with the enemy. 



OF HUNGARY. 171 

From this time, whilst affecting to treat 
the Austrian s with a contempt, which was 
the popular feeling in his army, accustomed, 
so invariably to beat them with anything 
like equal numbers — he spoke of the in- 
vasion of the Russians in the most dis- 
couraging manner, magnified their numbers, 
power, and resources, and represented the 
contest against them as a conflict against 
hope. At the same time he expressed his 
opinion that the Russians were not so hostile 
to the Hungarians, nor so friendly to Aus- 
tria as they seemed, and hints were thrown 
out of a constitutional and independent 
monarchy under a prince of Leuchtenberg, 
or the Grand Duke Constantine. Russian 
officers, on various pretexts, came frequently 
to his quarters with flags of truce, and did 
all in their power to confirm these reports, 
which were easily spread far and wide, and 

i 2 



172 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

went far to paralyse the influence of Kos- 
suth in rousing up the country. To all the 
orders, prayers, and .threats of Kossuth and 
the Diet, he replied by protestations of 
fidelity and obedience, and promises that he 
would march in the direction commanded 
on the following day. 

After the battle of Szered he retired to 
Comorn, where, twelve days subsequently, 
he was found by the Austro-Russian army, 
amounting to 70,000 men commanded by 
Haynau and Paniutin, and which the young 
Emperor Francis Joseph accompanied. 

The Austro-Russians attacked the Hun- 
garian entrenched camp which was on the 
right bank of the Danube, opposite Comorm 
and carried the outworks of Monostor, and 
the village of Szony, by a surprise which it 
was difficult to account for. The Hungarian 
army was very eager to recover these posi- 



OF HUNGARY. 173 

tions, but was only brought by degrees into 
the field, and never to a greater number 
than 40,000, against an enemy who left no 
effort unattempted to retain the advantage 
he had gained. 

By degrees, however, every point was re^ 
taken by the Hungarians, and after the last 
reserve of the Austrians and Russians had 
been engaged, Gorgey pushing on with the 
artillery and cavalry, threw the enemy's 
centre into confusion, and obliged him to a 
precipitate retreat. Two Austrian batteries 
were captured, (the Hungarians had lost 
one, early in the day,) with many prisoners, 
and although Gorgey made no serious at- 
tempt to pursue, the Austrians and Russians 
retired in disorder, as far as Dotis, three or 
four leagues from the field. The young 
Emperor, who was said to have borne him- 
self well in the beginning of the day, fled 



174 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

when it turned against Mm, to Raab, and 
never was seen afterward on a field of battle. 
Seven thousand men were killed or wounded 
on both sides, in this sanguinary action ; but 
as Gorgey had behaved with great gallantry, 
and was wounded, his army forgot to in- 
quire, " How the Austrians and Russians 
came to venture to attack, and how to suc- 
ceed in carrying the intrenchments which 
they carried ? How Gorgey had not brought 
his whole force into the field, that is to say 
the whole garrison of Comorn, which would 
have given him upward of 60,000 men ? 
and lastly, why he had not followed up, and 
utterly dispersed the Austro-Russian army, 
as he might have done ?" 

After messengers and commissaries des- 
patched in vain, there arrived, at length, on 
the night of the battle, at head-quarters, an 
order from Kossuth, superseding Gorgey, 



OF HUNGARY. 175 

and appointing General Messoros to the 
command. But a council of the dupes and 
partizans of Gorgey having been assembled, 
it was decided by them that they would 
only serve under Gorgey, and they conveyed 
to him their resolution to that effect. Gor- 
gey transmitted this to the Government 
with fresh assurances of his fidelity and 
zeal, as a plea for not resigning his com- 
mand, but promised, nevertheless, imme- 
diately to march against Paskiewitch. 

After nine days' further delay on pretext 
of his wound, which was a mere graze, he 
attacked Haynau's army to the south of 
Comorn, and retired again to that fortress 
on the 11th of July, after a desultory battle 
at Cszem. 

Two days after,* Gorgey, at length, 

* That is to say, nineteen days after he might 
have been at Pesth* 



170 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

marched in the direction prescribed to him 
along the left bank of the river. By this 
time Paskiewitch, with the main Russian 
army, had descended safely from the passes 
of the Carpathians, and was rapidly ap- 
proaching Pesth, where no obstacle existed 
to his junction with the Austro-Russian 
army under Haynau and Paniutin. 

During the second invasion, after the 
declaration of the expulsion of the House 
of Hapsburg at Debretzin, Kossuth had re- 
turned with the Diet to Pesth, forced to 
take this step, which he considered in- 
judicious, by the necessity of watching 
Gorgey. 

After the third invasion had taken place, 
Gorgey, many days before Haynau and 
Paniutin could have reached Pesth, sent 
to inform Kossuth and the Diet, that he 
(Gorgey) could not answer for the safety of 



OF HUNGARY. 177 

that city, for four and twenty hours. In 
consequence of this intimation, the govern- 
ment removed to Szegedin — a premature 
removal, which had a very fatal effect upon 
the campaign, by interrupting at an im- 
portant moment the working of the Bank 
note presses, whereby the government fell 
in arrears in a manner it could never sub- 
sequently recover. 

One of the great means by which Kossuth 
had been able so wonderfully to organize 
resistance, was due to the credit he had 
secured, before the revolution, to the Hun- 
garian paper, by making the condition of 
the national finance clear to the popular 
intelligence. Every man knew and knows, 
in Hungary, that it is based (and to what 
amount) on the national property, which an 
enemy may seize, but cannot carry away, 
nor alienate for w r ant of purchasers, w ho, 

i 3 



178 THE PAST AND FUTTJTtE 

from the experience of centuries, will be 
satisfied with nothing short of a title de- 
rived from the Diet. 

The unknown and unlimited issues of the 
Austrian paper, every one in Hungary knew, 
on the contrary, to be only based, at best, 
on the power of the Austrian government 
to collect taxes, whilst the excess of its 
expenditure, the hopeless disorders of its 
finances, and the frequent depreciation of 
formerly issued paper, helped to discredit it. 
The choice of the population was, it must 
be observed, limited between these papers, 
and not between either and a metallic cur- 
rency — there was, therefore, no hesitation, 
and up to the last moment of the contest, 
the credit of the small Hungarian notes 
remained unimpaired, but the supply being 
insufficient, through the limited number of 
presses, and the circumstance narrated, the 



OF HUNGARY. 179 

larger notes fell to a discount, because they 
could not be changed into smaller. 

It is worthy of remark, that although 
after the subjugation of Hungary it was 
made felony to hold the Kossuth notes, 
they were, and are, still bought up at 20 
per cent, by the peasantry, who, unable to 
obtain silver or bullion, use the Austrian 
notes for circulation, but collect the Kos- 
suth notes to hoard, whenever, even at a 
personal risk, they can be obtained, being 
sure of the eventful worthlessness of the 
one, and confident of the ultimate liquida- 
tion of the other. 



180 THE PAST AND FUTURE 



MISCHIEVOUS RETREAT OF 
GORGEY. 

Gorgey obliged to attack Paskieioitch and 
the Russian army, forces it to retire — 
retreats, leaving Nagy-Sa?idor to be over- 
whelmed, but tv/io arrests the tohole Rus- 
sian army — makes a circuitous march of 
300 miles to the Maros — advocates a 
Russian Prince and constitutional mo- 
narchy — seeks to demoralize his army by 
starvation and fatigue — cattses Nagy- 
Sandor s corps to be cut to pieces. 

When Gorgey did begin his march it was 
(after leaving behind him Klapka, and 
25,000 men in Comorn,) only with between 
30,000 and 35,000 men, and without giving 
notice of his march to the government, 



OF HUNGARY. 181 

whereby Dembinski's army, now comprising 
that of Perczel, was prevented from coming 
to his aid, although easily within reach 
when Gorgey came up with Paskiewdtch at 
Waitzen, at the bend of the Danube. 

The army of Paskiewitch had only been 
opposed by 12,000 men under Vysocki, 
who had been obliged to fall back, uniting 
his army to that of Perczel, of the whole 
of which Dembinski had again taken the 
command. 

Gorgey being obliged at Waitzen to 
attack, the van guard of Paskiewitch was 
impetuously driven back by the Magyars. 
The Russian Field Marshal retired as far as 
Duna-Kesi, half way to Pesth, which, by 
this time, Haynau's Austro-Russian army 
had reached unmolested. 

The next day, Gorgey struck northward 
into the mountain country he had entered 



182 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

during the last invasion, but leaving behind 
him, to be cut off, Nagy-Sandor, with the 
rear guard, which, Paskiewitch coming up 
with his whole force, engaged. 

Nagy-Sandor defended himself so gal- 
lantly, that Paskiewitch admits in his bul- 
letin, that he believed himself opposed to 
the whole Hungarian army. At nightfall, 
after great loss, the Hungarian General 
succeeded in retreating after Gorgey. 

Every movement of Gorgey from this 
time, was obviously calculated to enable 
him to fulfil his contract with the Russians, 
by weakening, demoralizing, and breaking 
the spirit of his army, but the spirit of that 
army was not easily broken. It consisted 
of the veterans of former campaigns, who 
had never been, and never were to the last, 
defeated in fair fighting, and who were 
accompanied by eight regiments of probably 



OF HUNGARY. 183 

the finest cavalry in the world, supported 
by one hundred and forty guns. 

Indeed, after three hundred miles of 
harassing, and incessant marching by a cir- 
cuitous route — after discouragement, star- 
vation, the abandonment of isolated corps, 
and the dissemination of fallacious promises 
— -it remained still unsafe to venture to 
propose to his troops a surrender, till he 
could announce to them that Kossuth had 
resigned, and that the army of the south 
had been destroyed. 

The particulars of this march are briefly 
as follows : Gorgey advanced from Waitzen 
to Loconz, and then eastward and south- 
ward toward Tokay, describing an arc from 
the former place to the latter, whilst the 
main Russian army (after detaching strong 
corps to pursue him) marched in a line 
which would represent its chord. During 



184 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

this time he was constantly harassed by, 
and skirmishing with the Russians, but was 
obliged to refuse an armistice for four and 
twenty hours, which would have enabled 
the main Russian army to cut him off from 
the passage of the Theiss, either because 
some of his creatures who sought only for 
a military despotism, or others who now 
expected to see the vague promises of 
Russia put into execution, grew suspicious 
— or possibly that he himself still believed 
in and held out for such a result. Directly 
after this refusal, he dismissed, however, 
the chief of his staff, and appointed his own 
brother in his place. About this time, 
General Nagy-Sandor surprised one of Gor- 
gey's relatives repairing to the Russian 
head-quarters, and took from her papers 
proving the understanding between the 
Russian and Austrian commanders and 



OF HUNGARY. 185 

chief ; but the effect of this discovery was 
neutralized by the allegation that Russia 
was proposing to interfere against Austria, 
and for the purpose of placing on the 
throne a Russian prince, who undertook 
to guarantee the constitution of 1848. 

The Theiss was reached and crossed, 
before the arrival of the main Russian army 
to intercept that of Gorgey, who then 
marched upon Gros-Wardein, whilst he 
detached Nagy-Sandor to Debretzin ; and 
as he had been doing day by day, by frac- 
tions of his army, now left that General's 
entire corps to be finally cut off and over- 
whelmed, after a gallant resistance, by the 
main army of Paskie witch, which had fol- 
lowed on his traces, whilst he (Gorgey) 
remained at Vamoz-Perez, within two hours 
of the fight, without marching to his assist- 
ance. In this manner, passing through 



186 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

Gros-Wardein, he arrived in the vicinity of 
Arad, whither Kossuth had at this time re- 
tired with the government, in consequence 
of events which I will now briefly narrate. 



OF HUNGARY. 187 



RETREAT OF DEMBINSKI— BATTLE 
OF TEMESVAR. 

Dembinshi retires from Szegedin, which he 
ought to have defended — marches on Tern- 
esvar instead of Arad — his army de- 
moralized by retreat — Bern, appointed to 
the chief command, immediately gives bat- 
tle — battle nearly won — Hungarians forced 
to retreat from the field of Temesvar. The 
army disperses after the battle, in con- 
sequence of a panic in passing through a 
wood. 

On quitting Pesth, Kossuth and the Diet 
had retired to Szegedin, where an army of 
upward of 60,000 men was assembled 
under the command of Dembinski. 

This army consisted of the corps which 



188 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

had been concentrated from the north and 
south — that is to say, Vysockis's, Perczel's, 
and the army of the south, to which fresh 
levies had been added. 

Jellachich, at the outset of this campaign, 
had defeated Perczel, and penetrated some 
way northward, when he was attacked and 
defeated, with the loss of 7000 men, by 
Generals Vetter and Guyon. Guyon, after 
the Ban had again rallied and recruited 
his forces, had subsequently attacked, de- 
feated, and put him ignominiously to flight 
at Panczsova, within sight of the cities of 
Semlin and Belgrade, and finally driven him 
beyond the Drave to Mitrovicz, upon the 
Turkish frontier. In this manner the 
southern army had become disposable. At 
Szegedin, which was strongly intrenched, 
Dembinski, under whose command these 
combined armies were now united, was pro- 



OF HUNGARY. 



189 



tected on his right by the Maros river, on 
his front by the Theiss, on his left by the 
fortress of Peterwardein, and on his rear by 
the Hungarian forces besieging Temesvar 
and Arad, which latter place about this time 
had surrendered, and to which the govern- 
ment retired. 

Haynau and Paniutin, with the Austro- 
Russian army, whom we last left in Pesth, 
marched on their part down to Szegedin, 
whilst Paskiewitch was pursuing Gorgey 
behind the Theiss. 

Dembinski, who had every element where- 
with to have made at Szegedin a successful 
stand, after a faint resistance, declared his 
positions untenable, and unaccountably re- 
treated. 

In case of retreating, he had orders to 
fall back upon Arad (which was a fortress 
in the hands of the Hungarians), there to 



190 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

effect his junction with Gorgey ; instead of 
which he disobediently retired upon Temes- 
var, a hostile fortress, and further from the 
point of junction. Whether, distrusting 
Gorgey, he suspected that Paskiewitch would 
be let in upon his (Dembinski's) rear, 
whether he thought that his treatment at 
Kapolna authorised the disobedience, or 
whether he concluded this to be a favourable 
opportunity for carrying out his former plan 
of an inroad into the Bukowinia, and that, 
as Gorgey had done twice before, he was 
manoeuvring to avoid Kossuth and the Diet, 
his conduct was equally censurable, and his 
retreat from Szegedin proved morally and 
materially more demoralizing to his army 
than a defeat ; men and horses being un- 
provided with food and forage, whilst the 
vast stores of provisions which Kossuth had 
collected at Szegedin were abandoned to 
the invader. 



OF HUNGARY. 191 

About the time that Dembinski was 
making his disastrous retreat on Temesvar, 
and thereby ruining the army, Bern had 
come to Kossuth to seek reinforcements. 
Though he had 20,000 men wherewith to 
defend Transylvania, against 85,000 in- 
vaders, he had not met with the same good 
fortune as in his first campaign. Hurrying, 
with an inadequate force, to Bistriz, where he 
heard the Russians had entered, he defeated 
the first corps, but was in turn, upon the 
following day, with his weakened force, de- 
feated by the overpowering numbers of a 
second army. Driven southward, he had 
made a rapid march on Hermanstadt, which 
he again took by storm. But his generals 
were unfortunate. Colonel Kiss was killed 
at the pass of the Rothenthurm, and the pass 
w r as carried, and other defeats and discom- 
fitures ensued. Still, Bern held strong po- 



192 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

sitions, and the enemy had greatly suffered, 
so that with 15,000 men reinforcement, and 
some fresh military stores, Bern yet calcu- 
lated on being able to clear the country, 
and these he came to ask of Kossuth, who 
seized the opportunity to appoint him to 
the supreme command of Dembinski's and 
of Gorgey's armies. 

Bern repaired to the environs of Temesvar, 
and on assuming the command of Dem- 
binski's army, immediately gave battle. In 
the condition of that army it was necessary 
to fight, and to fight without delay, but not 
to go into action as Bern did, so hurriedly 
that he had not time to make himself ac- 
quainted with the true condition of the 
force of which he had assumed command. 

The battle of Temesvar, which decided 
the fate of Hungary (at least for a season), 
began by Bern's marching to attack the 



OF HUNGARY. 193 

Austro-Russian army, under Haynau and 
Paniutin. 

Bern had the misfortune to have the com- 
mander of his right wing, Colonel Gall, 
killed when leading up ten or twelve raw 
battalions with which he was ordered to ad- 
vance, and which the officer who succeeded 
him inopportunely halted. 

Bern, in the meanwhile, was not in a 
position from whence he could see or remedy 
the error, but went with his chief artillery 
force, steeple-chasing with his left wing and 
driving the enemy recklessly from position 
to position before him. The Austrian and 
Russian cavalry and cavalry-reserves were 
brought forward, and to the number of 
twelve thousand, attempted to retrieve the 
day, but were charged by General Guyon, 
with seven thousand Hussars, and driven 
back in the utmost disorder. Meanwhile 

K 



194 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

Bern continued to advance till four o'clock 
in the afternoon, when it was no longer 
doubted that the victory was won. Haynau 
and his staff, it is said, had fled already 
from the field, when suddenly Bern's cannon 
was silenced. He had gone into action 
without discovering that his ammunition 
had been sent off the preceding night by 
mistake to Arad. Prince Lichtenstein per- 
ceived and took advantage of these accidents, 
and retrieved the day. Guy on made a last 
attempt by charging with his Hussars on 
one hundred and twenty cannon, now con- 
centrated by the Austro-Russians. His 
men rode gallantly almost up to the de- 
structive batteries, wavered for a moment, 
broke, and all was lost. Men and horses 
had been four and twenty hours without 
food or forage, and it is his opinion that with 
a single draught of wine a-piece, he would 



OF HUNGARY. 195 

have carried it, and thus, at the eleventh 
hour, turned the day. 

As it was — the Hungarian army retreated 
unpursued, the result being rather a victory 
they had failed to win than a battle they 
had lost, the enemy having suffered too 
severely, to follow them. Bern and Dem- 
binski, who was on the field as a volunteer, 
were both wounded in the action. The re- 
treat took place that night through a wood, 
always a dangerous operation with troops 
not in a high state of discipline. After 
penetrating some distance, on arriving at a 
cross road, an alarm of " The enemy !" was 
given, and a sudden panic seized the army, 
which dispersed into the forest, and which 
could not be rallied, the famished soldiers 
pushing on in all directions to seek food. 

So completely was the army scattered 
that on the following morning Guyon wrote 

k 2 



196 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

to Kossuth, saying that not a thousand men 
could be got together, and urging at the 
same time the arrival of Gorgey. 

But the Austrians and Russians moved 
with so much caution, and had suffered so 
much, that five days after the battle nearly 
all the soldiers dispersed in the forest, being 
unpursued and duly recruited from their 
privation, reassembled at Lugos, with all 
their horses and cannon, except a battery 
stuck fast in a marsh. This army was, 
however, destined to be finally dissolved by 
another panic, occasioned by a fatal event, 
of which their first dispersion had been the 
opportunity. 



OF HUNGARY. 197 



GORGEY OBTAINS THE DICTATOR- 
SHIP. 

Gorgey profits by the dispersion of the army 
at Temesvar to demand a transference to 
himself of the powers conferred on Kos- 
suth by the Diet. This demand supported 
by Kossuth 9 s ministry. Kossuth, without 
means to continue the defence, resigns his 
authority conditionally to Gorgey. 

After the loss of the battle of Temesvar, it 
had been the intention of Bern to retreat 
into Transylvania with the government, the 
Diet, Gorgey's army, and the fugitives from 
the wood of Temesvar, of whom he reckoned 
that at least 30,000 would be rallied. This 
would have placed at the command of Bern 
upwards of 50,000 infantry, 10,000 cavalry, 



198 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

and 200 or 250 cannon, with which — hold- 
ing as he still did, the strategic keys of the 
country— he could instantly have swept out 
the already weakened enemy, and have 
closed up the passes of the mountains. 

A glance at map No. 1, will show that 
Transylvania is one great natural fortress, 
surrounded by a wall of mountains, through 
which there are only half-a-dozen passes. 
But, like all vast fortresses, it requires a 
sufficient garrison, which such an army 
would have furnished. As we have seen 
that nearly the whole army did subsequent- 
ly rally at Lugos, his force would really 
hpve been near 100,000 men. He pro- 
posed to winter in Transylvania (inhabited 
by a warlike and willing population, which 
would largely have recruited the army), and 
contained within itself ample resources 
wherewith to feed and refit it. When re- 



OF HUNGARY. 199 

fitted and reorganized, the campaign would 
have reopened in the spring, the garrisons 
of Arad, Peterwardein, and Comorn holding 
out until that time, and the latter operating 
on the frontier, as at this time it was ac- 
tually doing, and even marching upon 
Vienna, which, but for Gorgey's surrender, 
it would undoubtedly have occupied. 

This retreat into Transylvania had ori- 
ginally been planned by Kossuth as an 
ultimate resource, in case of defeat. When 
he ordered Dembinski and Gorgey to con- 
centrate on Arad, by a timely operation 
the united armies, or a chief part of the 
united armies, could have fallen in superior 
force either on Paskiewitch or on Haynaff, 
who were advancing on different sides, and 
having beaten one, have turned against 
the other. 

The Hungarian army could, if beaten, 
retreat into Transylvania ; whereas, if either 



200 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

of the invading armies were beaten, it is 
difficult to see how Paskiewitch could have 
retreated, and impossible to point out how 
Haynau and Paniutin would have escaped 
destruction, except by retiring over the 
Turkish frontier, where the Hungarians 
would have demanded and obtained their 
disarmament, or whither they would have 
followed them. 

Both Paskiewitch and Haynau, although 
peculiarly, and even timidly cautious, neg- 
lected all prudence in their strategic move- 
ments in this invasion, and Haynau's advance 
was made into a hostile country, as will be 
perceived by reference to map No. 4, in 
utter contempt of the first principles of the 
military art. That is to say, that he pushed 
on, leaving his lines of communication with 
Austria, which was his basis of operations, 
liable to be cut off by an army of between 



OF HUNGARY. 201 

25,000 and 80,000 men in Comorn, as 
accordingly happened, so that if beaten, as 
he probably would have been but for one 
of the several accidents that turned the 
tables in his favour at Temesvar, not a man 
of his army could have escaped by the 
route they came. 

But this is not all. Vienna itself was 
left so insufficiently protected, that when 
Klapka sallied from Comorn on the 5th of 
August with 20,000 men, and pushed on to 
Raab, dispersing the Austrian army of ob- 
servation, capturing 3,000 prisoners, and 
all their artillery, together with 2,500 head 
of cattle and other stores intended for the 
supply of Haynau's army, there remained 
only 8,000 men to oppose him in the Aus- 
trian capital, which, but for the intelligence 
that reached him of the turn events had 
taken in the south, he would, without 

k 3 



202 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

doubt, have occupied eight-and-forty hours 
afterwards. 

What is the solution of this seeming 
rashness in generals whose chief faults were 
a superabundant caution ? Simply that 
acting in concert with Gorgey, they used 
every exertion, and ran every risk, to profit 
by a decisive opportunity, which would be 
lost for ever when he was removed from the 
command. Notwithstanding all these ex- 
ertions, and all the efforts of Gorgey, the 
fulfilment of his compact was not so easy. 
He had corrupted or cajoled many of his 
officers, he had brought his army down to 
the Maros, starved, exhausted, harassed, 
disheartened, and decimated by long marches 
and desultory combats, and yet neither he 
nor his accomplices and partisans dared 
propose surrender nor any kind of negotia- 
tion with the enemy to his soldiers, unless 



OP HUNGARY. 203 

he had the sanction of Kossuth or the Diet. 
He had done all that he could, by a vast 
circuitous march of three hundred miles, 
instead of effecting the junction by a cross 
cut of a little more than a hundred ; he had 
tarried, to allow Paskiewitch to come up, 
under every pretext which he could safely 
venture to set forth to his army ; but after 
all, here was that army within reach of 
Kossuth, and it required the defeat and 
accidental dispersion of Bern's army to 
enable the traitor to put his purpose into 
execution. 

When Kossuth received Guyon's letter, 
after the dispersion, to the effect that not a 
thousand men could be got together, the 
Governor of Hungary had every reason to 
rely on the accuracy of this intelligence. 
Guyon's character was that of daring in- 
flexibility. He was the first to cross the 



204 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

Austrian frontier when the army marched 
upon Vienna, and he fought his way out 
of Hungary, refusing to listen to any terms 
but those of the full independence and 
whole constitution. He was the last man 
likely to take a discouraging view% or to 
exaggerate a reverse, and the fugitives did, 
in the sequel, only unexpectedly reassemble 
because the Austro-Russians as unexpect- 
edly neglected to pursue or to molest them. 
Kossuth had therefore reason to believe 
that every thing now depended on Gorgey 
and his army. There w r as a force in Arad, 
a force in Peterwardein, 30,000 men in 
Comorn, or operating near it; there were 
the fugitives of Temesvar to be rallied, and 
the troops of Bern in Translyvania, consti- 
tuting, with Gorgey's army, 140,000 fight- 
ing men ; but none of these, except the 
garrison of Arad, could be utilised or even 



OF HUNGARY. 205 

reached by Kossuth without Gorgey's co- 
operation. 

It was by this utter helplessness that 
Gorgey profited to declare that he could 
secure, by negotiation, the independence 
and constitution if Kossuth would transfer 
to him the dictatorship of the country, but 
that he neither could nor would do so on 
any other. Gorgey was stern, hostile, and 
inexorable. Kossuth had endeavoured to 
take from him the command — he would 
make no explanations. He had proposed 
his terms — he would accept no others. 

Gorgey had been long in negotiation with 
the Russians. He had fully persuaded his 
officers that Russia was willing to establish 
constitutional monarchy under a Russian 
prince, and turn her arms, if necessary, 
against Austria. Strong opinions were ex- 
pressed in favour of his demands, by officers 



206 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

of rank, by members of the Diet, and by 
Kossuth's ministry, which met in the morn- 
ing, expressed itself to that effect, and on 
being convened in the afternoon by Kossuth, 
declared to him their opinion (excepting 
Bathyanyi and Szemere, who were not pre- 
sent),* " that under existing circumstances, 
the interests of the country required that he 
should comply with Gorgey's demand, and 
resign into the hands of that general the 
Dictatorial powers confided to him by the 
Diet." 

Kossuth hereupon transferred these 

* M. Szemere, who was one of -his ministers, 
complains that the ministry was not consulted. He 
was not consulted, because he could not be found. 
M. Buckovich, one of his colleagues, declares that 
he had already left for Turkey. This, M. Szemere 
has since denied, asserting that he was in the city, 
but had only changed his quarters, a sufficient ad- 
mission to exonerate Kossuth from neglecting to 
consult a man he could not find. 



OF HUNGARY. 207 

powers to Gorgey, on the express condition 
that he should use them to obtain, by negotia- 
tion, an honourable peace for the country, or 
to conduct to the utmost its defence. 

After thus returning to a private station, 
he retired into Turkey. His powers he had 
surrendered to a jealous rival, whom his 
presence in the country could only have dis- 
quieted at a moment when every energy was 
required undivided to extricate the country 
from its peril, whilst if negotiation was to 
secure the independence of the country and 
its constitution, it could only be on a mo- 
narchic basis, and under a Russian prince ; 
and though Kossuth, compelled by the de- 
sperate circumstances in which he was placed, 
was willing to withdraw to leave room for 
such a compromise, he would neither live 
under nor identify himself with it. 



208 THE PAST AND FUTURE 



GORGEY SURRENDERS UNCONDI- 
TIONALLY. 

Kossuth retires into Turkey. — Gorgey imme- 
diately surrenders to the Russians, and, as 
chief of the state, requires the Hungarian 
Generals and Commanders of fortresses to 
lay down their arms, assuring them that he 
has made good terms with the Tsar ; thereby 
entices his companions in arms to the 
shambles. 

Kossuth knew that as matters stood, Gorgey 
alone had the power of continuing the de- 
fence, and certainly at the head of his army, 
and with Dictatorial powers, possessed 
better chances of making favourable terms 
than Kossuth without an army, or than 



OF HUNGARY. 209 

Gorgey himself at the head of an army, but 
opposed by Kossuth. Gorgey 's envy and 
ambition once satisfied, Kossuth did not 
doubt that he would exert himself to the 
utmost to save his country, which he never 
conceived the possibility of his having be- 
trayed so infamously. 

Strange as the infatuation seems, there 
were scarcely half-a-dozen in the armyor 
the Diet, even amongst those who have 
since decried, who did not share in it, as is 
attested by the generals and officers, who 
fell victims of their misplaced confidence. 

No sooner did Gorgey find himself in- 
vested with executive power, than he laid 
down his arms to the Russians, without fur- 
ther Joss of time than was required for the 
whole force of Paskiewitch to come up on 
one side, and Haynau and Paniutin's on 
the other, for which purpose he marched 



210 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

and countermarched during a couple of 
days, and then surrendered with his whole 
force unconditionally, at Villagos, on the 
13th of August. At the same time he 
wrote to all the other generals and com- 
manders of corps and fortresses, ordering 
them, as Chief of the Executive Govern- 
ment, to follow his example in fulfilment of 
the advantageous conditions he had made. 
His injunction was universally obeyed. 
With the exception of the garrison of Co- 
morn, of the Polish and Italian legions, and 
of a small corps which followed Guyon, — 
generals and colonels, with their corps, and 
who might have resisted or escaped, and 
members of the Diet and of the government 
in the same predicament, laid down jtheir 
arms, or lingered confidently till in the 
power of their enemy. 

The army which had fought at Temesvar 



OF HUNGARY. 211 

and rallied at Lugos, dispersed again to a 
man, on hearing of Gorgey's surrender, 
never to reassemble. So with the remaining 
forces of Bern in Transylvania, whilst Arad 
and then Temesvar were given up on Gor- 
gey's requisition. 

For the first few days, — that is to say, 
until all the dupes that could be caught 
were netted, — the Hungarian officers were 
treated with every kindness and considera- 
tion by the Russian General, then they were ' 
handed over to the Austrians. Several w r ere 
executed, all ill-treated, and the officers 
thrown into prison ; but the knowledge that 
Comorn still held out, and was full of Aus- 
trian prisoners of high rank, restrained their 
cruelties till the surrender of that fortress. 

Comorn is the most formidable stronghold 
in Europe, inclusive even of Gibraltar and 
Malta. It contained a garrison of 30,000 



212 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

men, with 1,300 pieces of cannon of dif- 
ferent calibres, and was provisioned for a 
twelvemonth. Klapka, who was in com- 
mand, after two successful sallies had made 
a third, already mentioned, in which he had 
destroyed the Austrian corps of observation, 
and which had brought him, on the 10th, to 
Raab, whence he projected marching on 
Vienna, which was only defended by twelve 
battalions, when the news of the defeat of 
Temesvar induced him to retrace his steps. 



OF HUNGARY. 213 



COMORN CAPITULATES.— PRO- 
SCRIPTION BEGINS. 

Gorgey by his treason having violated the 
conditions on which Kossuth delegated his 
powers, Kossuth resumes them, makes an 
effort to save Comorn. — Comorn capitu- 
lates. — Hungarian Generals and States- 
men hanged and shot. 

Kossuth had not reached Orsova, upon the 
frontier, before the account of Gorgey's 
treason overtook him, from whence, together 
with Bern, Dembinski, Kmetty, Guyon, and 
five thousand fugitives, he passed through 
Wallachia, to Vidin, in Bulgaria, beyond the 
Turkish frontier. 

Meanwhile, Gorgey had ordered the gar- 



214 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

rison of Comorn to surrender, which it re- 
fused at first to do, though entering into 
negotiation with the Austrians. There 
were unfortunately amongst the officers 
some dupes of Gorgey's party, who were 
anxious to make terms, and as nothing was 
heard of Kossuth, and as Gorgey had re- 
ceived from him full powers, the fortress 
was given up to the Austrians, with the sti- 
pulation that the garrison should be allowed 
to secure a portion of its pay, and should 
be permitted to retire unmolested. 

Kossuth, having heard of these negoti- 
ations, and considering that the power de- 
legated to Gorgey had reverted back to him, 
on account of the non-compliance of the 
traitor with the conditions stipulated, had, 
however, dispatched a commissioner with 
powers and instructions to protract to the 
utmost the defence of Comorn. 



OF HUNGARY. 215 

These powers, which he could only give 
as Governor of Hungary, were countersigned 
by Count Casimir Bathyanyi. The com- 
missioner was on his way to Comorn when 
that fortress surrendered. The soldiers of 
the garrison broke their muskets and tore 
their flags, out of rage and grief at this hu- 
miliation. Austria, of course, violated the 
capitulation, and forced the privates and 
many officers into the ranks. 

Thirteen Hungarian leaders and generals 
of note were directly after this surrender 
hanged or shot ; although they had had, for 
months, in their power fourteen hundred 
Austrian officers of all ranks as prisoners, 
without injuring one of them, Gorgey being 
the only man who ever put a prisoner 
(Count Zichy) to death. 

Amongst the victims were some men of 
large fortune, w T hom the victors were anx- 



216 THE PAST AND FUTTJEE 

ious to despoil. Louis Bathyanyi, for his 
estate worth 3,000,000 of dollars ; General 
Kiss, condemned by Haynau, who was his ' 
debtor for 60,000 dollars ; Veczey, whose 
father (still living) had saved the life of the 
late emperor; Aulich, the soldier and phi- 
losopher ; the gallant Nagy San dor, and the 
fearless Danicanicz, who being reserved to 
be hanged last, said with composure, " Why 
last here ? was I not always first upon the 
battle-field ?" 

Louis Bathyanyi, who, when Comorn fell, 
had been tried over again, after being sen- 
tenced to four years' imprisonment, on the 
charge of being accessory to the murder of 
Count Latour, of which he was notoriously 
as innocent as of the death of Washington, 
was condemned to be hanged. Llis wife 
introduced a lancet into his prison, with 
which he made an ineffectual attempt to 



OF HUNGARY. 217 

sever the jugular vein. Discovered before 
he had bled to death, his wound was bans 
daged up, and he w^as hurriedly dragged out 
and shot, the gallows probably not being 
ready. He gave the word to fire, and fell 
shouting, " Long live Hungary I" The 
arrest of Bathyanyi had been a violation of 
the law of nations — his sentence was a ca- 
lumnv — his execution an assassination. 

Many others were put to death. Women 
of all ranks were stripped and scourged be- 
fore the soldiery. Officers from the rank of 
colonels downwards were shut up for life, 
or forced into the Austrian ranks as pri- 
vates, subject, at the caprice of officers and 
sergeants, to degrading punishment. 

Gorgey alone escaped scatheless. Im- 
mense pains were taken by the Russian 
agents to get him represented as a patriot, 
who had done the best possible for the 



218 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

country under desperate circumstances. 
Russia was prompted to the effort by the 
hope that he might still prove useful to her 
designs at some future period ; but Hun- 
gary scouted the attempt, and the whole 
nation, with the exception of a few of his 
dupes or partisans in foreign lands, devoted 
his name with one accord to execration. 
Austria would willingly have glutted her 
vengeance on him, urged especially by the 
Zichy family, who were very influential ; 
but, knowing that if he retired into Russia, 
his character as a Russian agent would be 
too palpable, Russia forbids her vassal to in- 
jure him, whilst insisting that he shall re- 
side in safety in the Austrian dominions ; 
where he drags on, at Clagenfurth, a soli- 
tary existence, hated by the government and 
abhorred as a traitor by the people. 

That he is not without some remorse for 



OF HUNGARY. 219 

the country he has betrayed, and for the 
brave companions-in-arms, whose confidence 
enabled him to decoy them into the sham- 
bles, would appear from the following anec- 
dote : 

When he surrendered at Villagos, there 
was upon his staff a young musician of 
some celebrity, who had followed his for- 
tunes to the wars, and to whom he was 
much attached. On taking leave of him he 
emptied into his hand the gold he had in 
his pockets, and then added a bunch of 
trinkets, amongst which was a keepsake 
from his wife, which the " artist " recog- 
nized and insisted on returning, saying, 
4 " What will your wife say if you lose it ?" 
to which Gorgey replied, gloomily, " Whet 
will my wife or any one else care, on for the 
future, about what is done by such a wretch 
as I have become?" 

l 2 



220 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

It has been contradictorily asserted by 
the opponents of Kossuth, that having 
140,000 men under arms, he could have 
protracted the struggle, and, at the same 
time, that Gorgey was so surrounded, that 
he could not continue it, the vanguard of 
the Austro-Russian army having reached 
Villagos the evening of the very day he laid 
his arms down to Paskiewitch. 

As far as Kossuth is concerned, I have 
already endeavoured to show that of this 
force one army was dispersed, the other 
under the command of Gorgey, and the re- 
maining forces beyond reach, without the 
co-operation of that general. 

With regard to Gorgey's surrender — in- 
dependent of the fact that if he had been 
really obliged to yield, he had been manoeu- 
vring during weeks to bring himself into 
that position — it is true that on the day he 



OF HUNGARY. 221 

actually surrendered, retreat was impossible, 
but it was feasible at the time that Kossuth 
transferred to him his powers. Gorgey had 
then still two routes open, and two courses 
before him ; one to Transylvania, the other 
to Comorn across the Theiss, the passage 
towards that fortress having been left com- 
paratively open by the eagerness of the two 
great armies of Paskiew^tch and Haynau to 
surround him. 

Thus terminates the brief narration which 
my space allows of events connected with 
the past struggle of Hungary ; but that 
struggle can hardly, I conceive, be under- 
stood and followed bv the reader, without 
impressing on him a conviction that Hun- 
gary, armed or unarmed, prepared or un- 
prepared, is far more than a match, through 
the spirit of her people, for Austria; and 



222 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

that even when Russia intervened, the 
Hungarian arms, without the treachery of 
G or gey, would probably have overmatched 
both the Austrian and Russian. 



OF HUNGARY. 223 



FUTURE PROSPECTS OF HUNGARY. 

Comparison of the prospects of Hungary in 
her past straggle and in a future contest. 
Increase of Kossuth's i?ifuence in Hun- 
gary. Races formerly hostile now friendly. 
Reasons why altered in feeling. Serbia, 
Moldo- Wallachia. 

This conviction with regard to its past, can 
but place in a more hopeful light the future 
efforts of that country ; but a close inves- 
tigation of the subject will show that 
numerous obstacles which militated against 
its success then, have been removed, and 
that many causes not then existing, or ex- 
isting only to oppose, now concur to operate 
in its favour. 

When Hungary was first invaded in 1848, 
her objects were purely defensive, and beyond 



224 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

defence her purpose long remained indefinite. 
Her councils were divided, and her actions 
paralyzed by a conservative — and subse- 
quently by Gorgey's military — party. The 
whole force of disciplined men did not ex- 
ceed 10,000, and there were not 30,000 
firelocks in the country. There was not an 
officer above the rank of subaltern in 
whom reliance could be placed, nor any, 
except a few Poles, with any military expe- 
rience. The revolutionary movement in 
Europe of 1848, failed because there was 
no kind of concert between the successful 
revolutionists, whilst the closest unity of 
purpose and of action prevailed on the side 
of Despotism. Hungary not only shared 
the disadvantages of this want of concert, 
but the most serious part of her contest 
took place after the other revolutions had 
been put down, when absolutism and reac- 



OF HUNGARY. 225 

tion had thoroughly combined their forces 
and were enabled to bring them all to bear 
against her. 

The Hungarians, whatever they might 
boastfully assert, did not yet know T that they 
were more than a match for the whole Aus- 
trian Empire. The division of the Diet, in 
consequence of which Count Louis Bathv- 
anyi unhappily repaired to the head- quarters 
of Prince Windischgratz, attests that a 
majority of its legislators did not then think 
they could even resist her. AVhen the Rus- 
sians entered, their inroad was preceded by 
the most exaggerated and discouraging re- 
ports, industriously spread by Gorgey and 
his creatures, which frustrated all the efforts 
of Kossuth, and paralysed resistance among 
the very people who had learned at this 
time to laugh to scorn the power of Austria, 
which they had so easily broken. 

l 3 



226 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

Hungary, at this period, was opposed, 
within her own territory, by the various 
races we have seen arrayed against her in 
that struggle — beyond, she had the warlike 
Serbians to contend with. The Hungarian 
patriots had not yet come to any under- 
standing with the Moldo-Wallachians, or 
with Turkey. 

In the north of Europe, the attention of 
Sweden, like that of Germany, was absorbed 
in the Schleswig - Holstein quarrel, and 
throughout Europe and Great Britain, a 
strong current of re-action had set in against 
the cause of civil and religious liberty, by 
its confusion with socialistic and commu- 
nistic principles, which absolutism and its 
organs, profiting by the follies and excesses 
of political sects, had temporarily succeeded 
in effecting. 

How stands the case in 1852? 



OF HUNGARY. 227 

In 1852, the whole Hungarian nation — 
I mean the nation in Hungary, not the 
wrecks of the temporising party, or of Gor- 
gey's coterie — looks with undivided and un- 
limited confidence toward Kossuth. The 
result of successive events, and the convic- 
tion they imposed, has destroyed the tem- 
porising Conservative party — the Gorgey 
party was annihilated by his treason and 
the merciless butchery and proscription to 
which it led. 

When the war terminated in Hungary, 
there were in that country 140,000 armed 
and disciplined men, accustomed to war- 
fare, and who had proved themselves, upon 
innumerable battle-fields, the finest troops 
in Europe. Where are they now ? Either 
at home, ready to resume arms at tire first 
signal, or in the Austrian ranks with arms 
in their hands. The temper of these troops 



228 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

may be judged from the fact that the young 
Emperor personally addressed one of these 
regiments which had been embodied many 
years before the war, to the effect that " they 
had been led away, he believed, by evil ad- 
visers, but he was confident that in future 
they would show as much valour in his 
service as they had displayed against him." 
This appeal, notwithstanding all the efforts 
of the Colonel and of the officers, was met 
at first by a dead silence, and then bv a 
simultaneous shout — " It is too late/' The 
Emperor turned his horse about in disgust 
and alarm and retired. At a sham fight in 
Italy, some confusion having arisen, and 
night having overtaken the army, the con- 
duct of whole battalions was so disorderly, 
and such threatening cries were heard, that 
the Emperor and his staff fled precipitately. 
In Hungary, at this moment, there exists 



OP HUNGARY. 229 

among all classes of the people an overween- 
ing contempt for the Austrians, and a cor- 
responding terror prevails in the Austrian 
ranks of the Hungarians, at whose hands 
they have met so many, and such terrible 
defeats. Every man, woman, or child you 
meet in Hungary will tell you that if they 
had only to contend with the Austrians, 
they would drive them out to-morrow. If 
it is objected : " How ? you are unarmed ;" 
they reply, confidently : " With scythes and 
sticks ; they have arms, and we can take 
them from them." 

During the war Kossuth had about 
400,000 volunteers on the lists ; a compa- 
rison of the present spirit, judged by certain 
districts ascertainable, would now give him 
half a million. 

It is to be remarked that no temptations 
of pay or military advancement would give 



230 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

all the Despotisms in Europe united, 50,000 
volunteers. The Russian recruits, for in- 
stance, are sent to their regiments hand- 
cuffed together, and till it was made felony 
there in Austria and in Prussia, adult males 
used to chop off the fore finger of the right 
hand, and knock out the front teeth, to dis- 
able them from pulling a trigger, or biting 
off a cartridge end. 

For the Russian army, which really is 
much less efficient than the Austrian, a 
much higher respect is entertained in Hun- 
gary — a relic of the superstitious terrors, 
by which its own agents, and Gorgey and 
his creatures, had prepared the way for in- 
tervention, but which have since vanished 
before actual contact and observation. 

Since the Hungarians have seen and 
measured their strength with the Russians, 
and had time to reflect over the result of 



OF HUNGARY. 231 

their experience, they have noted the exces- 
sive timidity and caution of the Russian 
generals, the inferiority of the Russian 
troops to the Hungarian, wherever, without 
too great disparity of numbers, they were 
brought into collision. They have per- 
ceived the liability of the Russians to epi- 
demics, occasioned by marches and fatigues, 
arising from the want of stamina, conse- 
quent on insufficient nourishment, and lastly, 
they have discovered that instead of pouring 
in by hundreds of thousands succeeding in- 
terminably to each other, as had been 
popularly circulated, Russia was never able 
to send more than 155,000 men during the 
two invasions across the Hungarian frontier, 
or even to assemble more than 80,000 men 
upon one point in Hungary, or 65,000 men 
upon one battle-field after a few marches 
had been made. 



232 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

Hungary had only 30,000 firelocks in the 
whole country when she began the contest. 
There are now between 50,000 and 60,000, 
with at least fifty pieces of cannon buried 
in various parts. 

The Wallachians in Transylvania, the 
Serbians, the Croatians and Sclavonians, by 
the providential impolicy of Austria, have, 
since the termination of the contest, not only 
experienced the illusory nature of her pro- 
mises, but been deprived of the few privi- 
leges they held before, whilst at the same 
time, these populations have discovered that 
the Magyars, before the civil war began, 
had given them all the rights and liberties 
they were contending for. 

Far and wide throughout the east of 
Europe, all nations and all races have learned 
to respect the warlike prowess of the Mag- 
yars, and amidst the customary want, of 



OF HUNGARY. 233 

political good faith, and in contrast to the 
shameless perfidy of Austria, so deeply 
rooted a conviction has spread in the integ- 
rity of Kossuth's word, that it had become 
proverbial even amongst those hostile to him. 

" If Kossuth had only passed his word, 
he would have kept it, but even at Arad he 
said might God cause his arm to rot and 
drop from his body before ever he made a 
concession to a Serbian," observed a Turkish 
Serbian leader, who had carried arms against 
the Hungarians, (repeating one of the po- 
pular falsehoods circulated by the Austrian 
and Russian agents at the time, but since 
dissipated), whilst at the same time he spat 
upon the ground to show his contempt for 
Austria and Jellachich. 

As far as Turkish Serbia was concerned, 
though it had learned to respect the Mag- 
yars, and to despise Austria, its old preju- 



234 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

dices against Turkey and the influence of 
the Greek priesthood, has inclined it to lean 
on Russia, but the conduct of Russia in the 
neighbouring principality of Wallachia has 
entirely alienated this confidence, and the 
popular feeling in Serbia has since inclined 
to a policy based on the maintenance of its 
relations with the Porte. 

Moldavia and Wallachia, or Moldo-Wal- 
lachia, are two separate provinces nominally 
Turkish, inhabited by a Wallack population 
of the Greek persuasion, and despotically 
governed by two tributary princes under 
joint Russian and Turkish protectorate. 

Moldavia and Wallachia originally made 
a compact with the Porte, similar to that in 
force at present between Turkey and Serbia. 
It was long respected, but was to some ex- 
tent infringed toward the period of the de- 
cline of the Ottoman power, whilst Russia 



OF HUNGARY. 235 

set herself up as the champion and protec- 
torate of the coreligionary population, ac- 
quired great influence through the Greek 
clergy, became very popular, and was enthu- 
siastically aided by the Moldo-Wallachians 
in her wars with Turkey. Of late years the 
Russian protectorate has however changed 
to a real occupation, the Turkish supremacy 
being only nominal. The Tsar, under 
various pretexts, has constantly kept up these 
armies, really nominated their princes, and 
carried on the government of the country. 
The former predilection of the inhabitants 
since they have experienced the weight of 
the Russian rule, has been changed to the 
most profound aversion. The mass of the 
population is in a state of stringent serfdom, 
and all influence and most of the property 
has passed from the hands of the middle 
classes and old native nobility into the hands 



236 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

of foreign families — Greeks from the Fanar, 
the most corrupt class in existence, thus re- 
warded for forwarding the interests of Russia 
in the Turkish court, provinces, and capital. 
Profiting by the events of 1848, the whole 
population (including even the Greek clergy) 
rose, with only the exception of the great 
foreign proprietors and Russian creatures > 
and expelled their prince, abolished serfdom, 
and appointed a provisional government, and 
a representative assembly. 

The Turkish Commissary very willingly 
sanctioned these proceedings, but Russia 
marched a large army into Wallachia, obliged 
the Porte to disavow its Commissary, re- 
stored the banished prince, abolished the 
new constitution, and re-established serfdom. 

The Russian army was not only supported, 
as usual, at the charge of Wallachia, but its 
corrupt and underpaid officers both used 



OF HUNGARY. 237 

every opportunity to extort from the Walla- 
chians, and purloined the provisions and pay 
of their soldiers, who consequently fell back 
for support on the population. For instance, 
the Russian officers claim the right of trans- 
port for their provisions, forage, and bag- 
gage. It is customary for them, on this 
pretext, to seize waggoners with their teams 
and yokes of oxen, and wantonly detain 
them for days, or take them several weeks' 
journey from their homes, unless they pay 
to be released, for which purpose they are 
commonly obliged to sell one or several head 
of their cattle. At the same time a Turkish 
army was sent into Wallachia to assert the 
protectorate of Turkey, and observe the 
Russians. 

As the Turkish army is highly disciplined, 
and better paid and found than any other 
in Europe, its conduct was very orderly. It 



238 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

was supported at its own charge, paid very 
liberally for every thing, and the well-fed 
Turkish soldiers might be seen disdainfully 
dividing their broken victuals between the 
dogs and the half-starved Russian soldiers. 

Wallachia adjoins Serbia, and it was these 
facts had so profound an effect on that 
shrewd and observant people, as to overturn 
all Russian intrigue had been, for years, la- 
bouring to effect. " The Russians have re- 
established serfdom in Wallachia ; we know 
it, we have seen it," say the Serbians : " why 
should they not, had they the power, impose 
it here?" 

The result has been, that in Hungary it 
may be confidently reckoned that, with the 
exception of a part of the military frontier 
of Croatia, one moiety of the populations 
and races, formerly hostile, will actively take 
part with — the other at least take no part 



OF HUNGARY. 239 

against — the Magyars. Here, as through- 
out Eastern Europe, the oppressed and 
outraged masses look to Kossuth as their 
deliverer. 



240 THE PAST AND FTJTUEE 



PROSPECTS OP HUNGARY. 

How is Kossuth to reach Hungary ? Upwards 
of 400 miles of frontier , and 400 miles 
of sea-coast inhabited by sympathizing 
populations. Feeling of the Turks and 
Albania?is toward Hungary. State of 
Turkey. 

Beyond the Hungarian territory the sym- 
pathy and co-operation of the Wallachians 
and Serbians is secured, and secured without 
giving umbrage to the Porte. So, that now 
when it is asked, " How can Kossuth ever 
introduce arms, &c, into Hungary, when it 
has only one port, Piume, closely watched 
by the Austrians ?" it may be replied, 
" Look at the whole coast of Croatia and 



OF HUNGARY. 241 

Dalmatia, from Fiume down to Cattaro and 
beyond Scutari, with its countless islands — 
well, there is not a spot of that coast, ex- 
tending 400 miles, whose inhabitants do not 
sympathize with Kossuth ; there is not a 
fisherman or a sailor, who navigates those 
seas, who is not deeply interested in the 
success of the cause he advocates. Cast 
your eyes now on the map, and follow with 
your finger the frontiers of eastern and south- 
ern Hungary, from the pass of Bistriz, in 
Transylvania, to Belgrade, stretching another 
four or five hundred miles, and there is not 
a spot it will pass over where his cause has 
not active or devoted friends." 

But how are these sympathising popula- 
tions to be reached? By whom are the 
intervening territories inhabited? By Al- 
banians and by Turks, devoted and fanatical 
Mahomedans, who look on war with Russia 

M 



242 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

as a holy war — who, for the first time in 
their history, in the persons of the fugitive 
Magyars, have fraternized with Christians — 
whose oriental imagination has never been 
impressed, since the time of the prophet, 
but with two infidel names, that of Napoleon 
and of Kossuth — Kossuth, whom they were 
anxious to convert to their faith, as the 
greatest glory that could have gladdened 
Islam, — men who would not raise their eyes 
to look on a Christian prince or ambassador, 
but who, nevertheless, allowed their women 
to troop out and gaze on him, and gave up 
to him, in the villages through which he 
passed, to do him unprecedented honour, 
the apartments of the harem. 

When the extradition of Kossuth and the 
refugees was pressed by an autograph letter 
of the Tsar's, and the threat of immediate 
invasion, there was but one cry through the 



OF HUNGARY. 243 

empire, from the seraglio to the hamlet, 
and the Yuruk's tent, of " Sooner risk 
everything than give up our guests." The 
noble conduct of the Sultan is well known. 
The Sultan's brother-in-law, a Circassian, 
then commander-in-chief, rose from his 
divan, in the council, and appealed against 
the proposition to heaven and to the pro- 
phet. 

In Albania the feeling may be judged 
from the fact that twentv Hungarian de- 
serters, dismissed bv Sardinia after her 
defeat, had arrived at a port adjacent to 
Scutari with English passports. The Aus- 
trian consul claimed them as his subjects, 
and as they were basely given up by the 
English vice-consul of that port (not of 
Scutari), a Levantine, they were sent on in 
chains to Scutari. 

Here another English vice-consul de- 

M 2 



244 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

manded their release, and the Austrian 
insisted on dispatching them to Cattaro as 
his subjects ; but the perplexed pacha was 
soon relieved of his anxiety by the armed 
Albanian population, who declared, that if 
the captives were not immediately released, 
they would force the prison and set up the 
head of the Austrian consul over it. These 
rude and fanatical men, through whose 
quarters Christians dare not pass, released, 
cherished, provided, and forwarded the exiles 
on their way, who were going to join in a 
contest in which their hosts took absorbing 
interest. 

When the surrender of Gorgey was 
known, old men, botK amongst Turks and 
Albanians, tore their beards, and foretold a 
judgment on the faithful, for not having 
taken part opportunely in the war. 

Turkey is commonly judged — and its 



OF HUNGARY. 245 

government, to some extent, misjudges its 
own strength — by recollection of the time 
when its irregulars and Janissaries could no 
longer cope with the disciplined armies of 
Europe, or of the period of still greater 
weakness which succeeded, when these na- 
tional levies were superseded by regular 
troops, whose efficiency religious and other 
prejudices long impeded. But these pre- 
judices have passed away, and Turkey has 
now on foot 160,000 brave and well-dis- 
ciplined troops, full of courage and confi- 
dence, and whom (although deficient in 
artillery, cavalry, and superior officers) Bern, 
as far as the infantry — the soul of armies — 
was concerned, pronounced very superior to 
the Austrian or Russian. 

Kossuth, in his speeches at Harrisburg, 
has ably explained that Turkey has already 
no reason to dread Russia by land, and that 



246 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

it Is only for Constantinople that she fears, 
having no adequate fleet to oppose the 
Russian fleet in the Black Sea (inefficient 
as that is), which in a few hours can embark 
30,000 men at Sebastopol. Of the two 
straits which give ingress and egress to the 
sea of Marmara and city of Constantinople 
— that is to say, the Bosphorus and the 
Dardanelles — Russia has obliged her to 
fortify the latter, which would only enable 
her to bolt the door against her friends, 
whilst leaving the Bosphorus open to her 
enemy; and English, French, and other 
legations, have consented quietly to this 
arrangement, whilst encouraging the belief 
in their own countries that Turkey was 
protected against Russia by their mediation. 
Some of the elements of strength for 
Hungary, in a future contest, had no exist- 
ence during her past struggle, others only 



OF HUNGARY. 247 

required combination, for which subsequent 
time and circumstances have been afforded. 
Kossuth, since his landing in England, has 
made, in a foreign tongue, more speeches in 
a given time than any man living ever made 
before. This— a small portion of his oc- 
cupations — affords some measure of his 
activity. It may be supposed that, during 
nearly two years' detention in Turkey, he 
was not idle. Indeed, it may be asserted 
that Austria, which by shutting him up in 
a prison in Buda, gave him the opportunity 
to learn that language in which he is moving, 
so eloquently and profoundly, the whole 
Anglo-Saxon race, in a like manner, by ex- 
erting her influence to prolong his forced 
sojourn in the Turkish territories, afforded 
him the means of furthering his country's 
cause in a way which probably neither the 
cabinet of Vienna nor of St. Petersburg 
ever contemplated. 



248 THE PAST AND FUTURE 



PROSPECTS OF HUNGARY. 

Europe in 1847 and 1852. Italy, The 
" Invisible Government." 

The future prospects of Hungary, though 
only intelligible by reference to her past 
struggle, and by a due consideration of the 
circumstances under which it was made, 
require, to be fully appreciated, that the 
reader should take a bird's-eye view of the 
present political condition of other parts of 
Europe, and a brief retrospect of some of 
their antecedents, and above all, that he 
should cast his eye over the Russian des- 
potism, map in hand, to espy the "feet of 
clay' beneath its "front of brass!' 



Of HUNGARY. 249 

If we contemplate the continent of Europe 
generally, we must remember how firmly, 
in the beginning of 1847, despotism was 
seemingly everywhere seated. There had 
never been revolutions in Austria or in 
Prussia. Those who had ventured to fore- 
tell such an event, would have been looked 
upon as visionaries. No Italians, since the 
middle ages, had ever fought, and no one 
would believe that they ever would fight. 

Switzerland had indeed bestirred herself, 
but Louis Philippe and Austria were talking 
of putting her down. Indications of the 
coming change there were in the atmosphere, 
aud reasons why it must take place, but 
neither one-hundredth part so palpable, nor 
one-hundredth part so obvious, as now in- 
dicate the gathering storm, and exist in- 
evitably to determine its bursting over 
Europe. 

m 3 



250 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

Yet, in 1848, every throne on the continent 
of Europe was shaken. Three Kings and 
one Emperor (of France, Bavaria, Sardinia, 
and Austria) were forced to abdicate. 
France, Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, 
Naples, and the petty states of Germany 
and Italy, were revolutionized, and almost 
every great city in Europe. Paris, Vienna, 
Berlin, Dresden, Frankfort, Prague, Pesth, 
Rome, Naples, Messina, Florence and Pa- 
lermo were in the hands of the people. The 
prestige of absolute power in many of the 
States where revolution had never been 
before triumphant, cannot be so great after 
that event as before it. These numerous 
cities, only recovered by the sword, and kept 
in obedience by a state of siege and martial 
law, cannot be as easy to hold in subjection 
now as formerly. 

We have seen, after the apparent calm of 



OF HUNGARY. 251 

1847, what events were brought forth by 

1848. Can any one believe that there is 
more security in 1852 ? We are often told 
of the hundreds of thousands to which the 
hosts of absolutism amount, and they are 
complacently paraded in newspaper para- 
graphs before us. It had as many bayonets 
then as now — as many as its means would 
support — no more. They were felt not to 
be superfluous, and proved really insufficient 
to prevent the catastrophe to w T hich allusion 
has been made. If power was recovered by 
the princes of Europe, it was only because 
they worked in concert, and the revolution 
without it. Now that the revolution is 
working in concert, will not these forces at 
least find full employment ? Even if Ger- 
many does not move, will not Germany 
occupy armies ? Even if Poland remain 
quiescent, must not vast hosts be required 
to watch her ? 



252 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

There is another misconception which it 
is, perhaps, necessary here to notice, as to 
the disposable repressive force which the 
European absolutists can command, de- 
rived from recollections of the campaigns of 
the allied armies, when hundreds of thou- 
sands were poured forth by Russia, Austria, 
and Prussia, to overwhelm Napoleon, and 
when a quarter of a million of men were 
embattled on the field of Leipsic. These, it 
may be answered, are feats impossible of 
repetition. When they occurred, the popu- 
lations of those countries were tired of the 
domination of Napoleon, and promised free- 
dom by their sovereigns. Five regiments 
would have sufficed to keep these vast 
regions quiet, so that the whole military 
force of these powers was available for 
purposes of aggression: 1848 and 1849 
have proved that it is now inadequate to 
vindicate their authority at home. 



OP HUNGARY. 253 

South of Austria, and part of Austria 
itself, we have Italy. Italy succumbed in 
the last struggle, chiefly for the reasons 
which occasioned revolution to succumb 
generally in Europe, to re-action. Milan 
drove out Radetsky and the Austrians with 
more bravery than the French had driven 
out the troops of Charles the Tenth, in 
1830. Italy had shown a spirit which even 
her friends dared hardly to have hoped she 
would display, and had her armies in the 
field. But Italy was divided not only be- 
tween the Pope, Charles Albert, and Mazzini, 
but by her local traditions and ambitions. 
There were partisans of a kingdom of north- 
ern Italy, there were Genoese, Venetians, 
Neapolitans, and Lombards, all anxious for 
the independence and supremacy of their 
states and cities. But when monarchy had 
lost divided Italy in a three days' campaign 



254 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

with an army of 100,000 men, Mazzini 
stepped forward in Rome, the most mag- 
nificent theatre in the world, and with a 
mere handful (14,000) redeemed the honour 
of Italy by a defence more gallant than 
Rome had ever made since its foundation, 
and scarce surpassed by any modern times 
have witnessed. The political effect of this 
great moral protest defies all calculation. 
Its immediate result was to convert nineteen- 
twentieths of the active spirits of Italy into 
fervent partisans of Italian unity, and from 
that time to the present, their undeviating 
motto has been — " One Italy, with Rome for 
Capital, Republic as a form of government, 
and Mazzini for leader." The siege of 
Rome furthermore brought out the warlike 
temper of the inhabitants of Romagna, pre- 
viously unsuspected by themselves, and 
Italy, instead of being reckoned in a muster- 



OP HUNGARY. 255 

roll of the forces of revolution, as a country 
which has nothing but its aspirations, its 
artists, and its singers, must now be ac- 
counted as a land which can furnish men 
who overcame and scattered at Rome, in 
every fair hand-to-hand encounter, the 
veteran troops of France. 

Consequent upon the singular harmony 
w r hich has grow^n out of the great disasters 
occasioned by disunion, there has been 
established in Italy an organization unpre- 
cedented for its completeness, universality, 
and success. Throughout the peninsula, 
but especially in Romagna, Lombardy, 
Tuscany, and the chief part of Naples, an 
" Invisible government" popularly so called, 
shares the administration of the country 
with its enraged authorities. It issues its 
edicts to prevent smoking, for instance, and 
thereby injure the revenue, and prove the 



256 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

unanimity of public feeling, and smoking 
ceases ; it proscribes certain foreign tex- 
tures or garments, and they are abandoned. 
It has for two years printed and dis- 
tributed weekly its journal and its flying 
sheets with almost the regularity of a 
newspaper, yet the police has been unable 
ever to seize types, editors, printers or dis- 
tributors. It organizes its army ; it is 
known to have its corps, commanders, 
battalions, companies, officers, non-commis- 
sioned officers and privates, chosen, de- 
signated, and pledged to act on the first 
signal. It has its regular and more recently 
established taxes, collected by the secret 
societies, who in the spring of the present 
year had already transmitted to London 
400,000 dollars, and who had larger sums 
to follow. It has its stores of ammunition 
and of safely landed arms to which the 



OF HUNGARY. 257 

popular contributions have been devoted ; 
the total number of muskets now at the 
disposal of the Invisible government not 
being less than 150,000. Above all, it is 
under such controul, that the masses can be 
restrained until the moment opportune for 
action with simultaniety and effect. 

Mazzini is to Italy what Kossuth is to 
Hungary, and Kossuth and Mazzini act in 
such strict unison, that the former has 
declared Italy to be only, in the coming 
contest, a right wing of that army, of which 
Hungary constitutes the centre. 

This national organization pervades the 
troops > post-office, police, and even officials 
of the Vatican. The immense majority of 
the lower clergy (starving now, but whose 
stipends Mazzini and the Roman Republic 
increased, whilst they cut down the revenues 
of cardinals and bishops) join in this move- 



258 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

ment, and amongst eighteen conspirators 
arrested in Lombardy, it turned out that 
seventeen were priests. 

Now Austria leaves in Italy no Italian 
troops and as few Hungarians as possible, 
but still her army is so saturated with them, 
that she has no less there than 30,000 
Hungarians — men in whose ranks are colo- 
nels and commissioned officers (degraded 
after Gorgey's surrender to privates), and 
who have fought against Austria for the 
Hungarian Commonwealth, through the 
eventful campaigns which in the preceding 
pages have briefly been narrated. She has 
beside, her Polish regiments in Italy, and 
her Italian regiments in Germany and Hun- 
gary. Formerly these were mere sabres 
and bayonets; now, as Kossuth expresses it, 
they are sabres and bayonets which think. 

There had arisen since 1848, one great 



OF HUNGARY. 259 

obstacle to the cause of free government 
and progress, to which allusion has been 
made — its insidious identification with 
socialism and communism. This obstacle 
Kossuth succeeded in removing, in spite of 
all attempts at calumny and misrepresenta- 
tion, by making his political principles so 
clear, through his persevering eloquence, that 
the whole world knows that he advocates 
a decentralised republican system, on the 
model of the constitution of the United 
States, in contradistinction to the centralized 
Irench school, with its socialistic tendencies ; 
with which, whatever may be the case in 
Trance, neither Hungary, Italy, nor the 
greatest part of Europe can have any pos- 
sible concern. 



260 THE PAST AND FUTURE 



PROSPECTS OF HUNGARY : MAP 5. 

Russia. Its financial weakness. Its fleet. 
Causes of enfeeblement in the hostile 
nations or races over whom its rule ex- 
tends, and which encircle its southern and 
western frontier. Poland. Baltic pro- 
vinces. Finland. Sweden. Circama. 

In the first instance it should be remem- 
bered, that although far more heavily taxed, 
the whole Russian population of 67,000,000 
does not furnish quite one-third the ordinary 
revenue of either Prance or of Great Britain ; 
and that although Russia made a great 
parade of her millions in the bank of 
Prance and the bank of England, it was 
declared by Mr. Cobden shortly afterwards, 



OF II UX GARY. 



261 



that she could not make two campaigns 
without resorting to a loan. The event 
more than justified his anticipations ; for 
humiliating as it was to the Tzar, he ivas 
obliged, after one campaign in Hungary, to 
ask succour of the money market. What is 
more, the shares were taken by certain capi- 
talists before the loan was published ; but 
as these capitalists, who bought to sell at a 
profit, lost by their speculation, it is doubt- 
ful whether Russia would ever get another 
— the attempted loan of Austria, when the 
state of her finances was understood, having 
been a perfect failure. 

But though Russia, keeping up a larger 
army than she can afford, and a prodigious 
police and spy system, which wastes and 
eats up the resources of the country- — is 
obliged to underpay officials and officers at 
home, w r ho live by plundering her oppressed 



26.2 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

population and half-starved soldiers ; still 
she spares no expense on her diplomacy or 
secret service money, and thus every where 
(as Ave have seen in the narration of her in- 
tervention in Hungary) succeeds in dis- 
seminating abroad exaggerated impressions 
of her real strength. Every confidential 
diplomatic agent — M. Bodisco, for instance 
— has at his disposal an unlimited credit, 
and can spend privately ten, a hundred 
thousand, a million of dollars, to produce an 
adequate political result. 

Of the Russian army I have spoken — one 
word about the Russian fleets. Russia has 
fifty sail of the line, and 50,000 soldiers of 
marine, yet her navy is actually the weakest 
in Europe except that of Turkey. She has 
not, to fight and navigate her northern and 
southern fleets, more than 3,000 sailors. 
When a Russian man-of-war or squadron 



OF HUNGARY. 263 

comes westward, it is always manned by 
these picked crews. It may safely be as- 
serted, that in a maritime contest, she would 
stand no chance with the single cities of 
New York or Liverpool, or even probably of 
Hull or Boston ; and she has literally no 
crews who could bring her Baltic fleet safely 
round to the Black sea, nor her Black sea 
fleet safely round to the Baltic. 

I would beg the reader, in conclusion, to 
refer to Map No. 5, and cast his eye over 
that gigantic empire, whose presiding -des- 
potism — diametrically antagonistic to the 
cause Kossuth personifies, andwhose eventual 
existence incompatible with his success — is 
the keystone which supports all other des- 
potisms which over-arch the European world, 

and darken it with the shade of suffering 

and of evil. 

In the west, we have Poland. One frac- 



2fi4 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

tion has been given to Prussia and called 
simply Posen, another to Austrian and called 
Gallicia, and Russia has incorporated two- 
thirds of the remainder with her Russian 
territories, so that the only Poland proper 
has not now, perhaps, 5,000,000 of inhabi- 
tants. 

But these nominal divisions are a farce, 
useful possibly to impose upon the west, 
but which do not prevent, and cannot hide, 
the great reality, that living contiguously to 
each other, and divided only by imaginary 
lines traced by diplomatists upon a map, 
are twenty millions speaking one language, 
belonging to one race, following one creed, 
unanimous in their determination to be re- 
united, and in their hatred of the Tsar. 

A little northward, we come to the Baltic 
provinces. Are their inhabitants loyal sub- 
jects on whom Russia can rely? On the 



OF HUNGARY. 265 

contrary the peasantry are Kours or Let- 
tonians, who hate Russia and the Tsar, and 
the nobility and burghers are Swedes or 
Germans, who would seize eagerly any fair 
opportunity to detach their country from 
his rule. 

Next we have Finland, all except one 
small portion, a Swedish province, severed 
from Sweden within this century. Its popu- 
lation is Lutheran; polite education has 
always been in Swedish, and literature and 
historic association connect its inhabitants 
with that country. Russia they so much 
abhor that even in that part of Finland 
east of Vyborg — conquered since the time 
of Peter the Great, and on which St. Peters- 
burg itself is built — seven miles only from 
the capital, the Russian language is still un- 
learned after an annexation of one hundred 
and forty years. 



266 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

Finland is an inaccessible country of 
lakes, rocks, and rivers, all lines of military 
communication being limited to the seabord, 
and liable to be cut off by a fleet. 

West of Finland, beyond the Russian 
frontier, is Sweden, as anxious to recover 
Finland as Finland to be re-united to her. 
"There is not in Sweden," as Kossuth has 
expressed it in his address to the Stockholm 
committee, who celebrated his liberation by 
a public banquet, " there is not a Swedish 
homestead from the borders of Lapland to 
the Sound, in the breasts of whose inhabi- 
tants the recollection of that spoliation of 
Finland, does not rankle." Sweden, con- 
tains the most warlike population in Europe, 
although it is poor and thinly scattered. 
An excellent militia system of alternating 
regular service, gives her the command of 
120,000 disciplined soldiers. Freedom of 



OF HUNGARY. 207 

speech and of the press exists with repre- 
sentative forms of government, and so 
strong is the feeling of animosity to Russia 
with all classes, that in a general contest, or 
where any combination against that despo- 
tism afforded a fair opportunity or diversion, 
no government could stand which refused 
to go to war. 

If we look at Russia proper we have, on 
the one side, the nobility and landed pro- 
prietors, some members of nearly every 
family of which belonged to the conspiracy 
to overturn despotic government, which 
broke out on the accessation of Nicholas. 
In 1849, as shown in the foregoing pages, 
this class was again conspiring. On the 
other hand — the slave peasantry, goaded 
continually into local rebellions, but peace- 
ful and inoffensive, regarding with aversion 
war and all its panoply, and accustomed to 

N 2 



268 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

be punished for grave felonies indifferently 
witlii Siberia or enlistment. 

South we have the little Russians, or 
Cossacks, a more warlike race, but whom 
Russia has not ventured to discipline. Pro- 
found dissatisfaction is manifested amongst 
this people, and liberal ideas are gradually 
breaking in amongst them. After the sur- 
render of Gorgey many Hungarian officers 
owed their escape from Hungary to the 
connivance of the Cossacks. 

There remains the Caucasus. Its indo- 
mitable inhabitants — certainly the bravest 
of the human race, and physically repre- 
senting amongst men what the thorough 
bred horse does in his species — have always 
successfully defended their mountains against 
the power of Russia. 

Beyond lies Georgia, the Russian Italy, 
to which the passage lies through two nar- 



OF HUNGARY. 269 

row passes — the passes of the Iron gate 
and of the Terek — the only precarious roads 
which Russia has succeeded in securing 
through this great hostile rampart, which 
bars her passage into southern Asia. 

The western half of Circassia, inhabited 
by the two most warlike tribes — the Tchez- 
kesses or Circassians proper, and the Aba- 
zeks — Russia has for many years ceased 
molesting, to direct her efforts eastward of 
the western passage, w r here several inferior 
tribes raised the banner of resistance under 
the famous Schamyl. 

In two successive campaigns (previous to 
3 848), the Emperor Nicholas made a de- 
termined effort, with all the means he could 
command, to subdue this country, and des- 
patched Prince Worontzow, with extra- 
ordinary power and resources for that pur- 
pose. Worontzow penetrated to Schamyl's 



270 THE PAST AND FUTURE 

village, but lost one-half of his army in the 
retreat to which he was compelled. The 
second expedition, undertaken to avenge 
the first, was still more disastrous. A 
large part of the army perished, 200 officers 
remained in the hands of the Circassians, 
who swept over the border with 10,000 
horsemen and laid siege to a fortress where 
no Circassian had been seen for five-and- 
twenty years. This check the Russians 
have not recovered, their outposts being 
further removed now than they have been 
for many seasons. Circassia is an impreg- 
nable fortress, which may laugh to scorn all 
the efforts of Russia, whilst properly led 
and organized, the Circassians could easily 
close up the passes, conquer Georgia, and 
supply a force of 50,000 warriors to invade 
the territories of Russia and occupy her 
armies. 



OF HUNGARY. 271 

Kossuth, I have said, has not been idle. 
If he seeks strength in combinations with 
Russia's natural enemies, a glance will 
show, that vast as her size is, they encircle 
her in a mighty curve which reaches from 
the shores of Lapland to the Caspian Sea. 



- 



NOTES. 



For further information on the subjects inci- 
dentally mentioned in these pages, I would 
refer the reader to Golovine's Custines, Thomp- 
son's and HorerV Russia — to the Revelations 
of Russia and Eastern Europe, to the Port- 
folio, to Urquhart's Turkey and Spirit of the 
East, to Paget's Hungary, to De Gerando's 
Hungary, to Cyprien Roberts' Sclavonians of 
Turkey, to Mazzini's writings, to Giobertis' 
book upon the Jesuits, to Father GavazziV 

published Oration, to Madame Pultsky's book, 

n3 



274 NOTES. 

and particularly to the speeches of Kossuth, 
which will shortly be published, with correc- 
tions, and which eontain in themselves a history 
of European politics. 

In his speech at Winchester, he shows that 
the Hungarians were simply contending for 
rights and liberties, more ancient and less 
ample than those the English expulsed the 
Stuarts to assert, and points out that, like his 
fellow-countrymen, he had no aim beyond as- 
suring the constitutional form and limitation of 
a monarchic form of government. 

In his address to the operative classes in 
Copenhagen fields (London), he declared that, 
although this had been their sole aim when war 
was forced upon them — in consequence of the 
events of that war crowning three centuries of 
perfidy and oppression, and rendering it ob- 
vious imbecility to enter into any further com- 
pact with the House of Hapsburg — republican 
institutions would alone satisfy the Hungarian 
people, and that it was his determination, when- 
ever the opportunity was afforded him, to intro- 
duce those institutions on the United States' 
model. 



NOTES. 275 

In his speeches at Manchester and Birming- 
ham, he points out " That the true concern of 
every nation with the condition of another must 
depend on selfish views of material interest, on 
philanthropic principles, or on considerations 
compounded, in varying proportions, of both 
these incentives to sympathy or action." 

Treating the question from an English point 
of view, and solely as regards material advan- 
tage, he shows that the British community is 
deeply interested in the spread of free govern- 
ment, because its trade is greater or less with 
nations according as they enjoy free institutions, 
or are oppressed by despotism. So, that the 
commerce of England with the non-manufac- 
turing absolutism of Russia, had only averaged 
seven pence per head of the population, whilst 
with manufacturing but republican America, it 
had been seven shillings, or twelve times greater ; 
and that striking as this difference was, it had 
been still further increasing, the British trade 
with Russia having sunk down to six pence, 
whilst that of the United States had risen to ten % 
shillings. That these, although extreme, were 



276 NOTES. 

not exceptional cases, nations being unvaryingly 
prosperous in proportion to the liberties they 
enjoyed, and the trade of the British people 
with them being, even notwithstanding pro- 
tective tariffs, precisely in the ratio of their 
prosperity. 

Now, that which is true with regard to Great 
Britain is equally true with respect to the United 
States. The exports of the United States to 
Great Britain (in the year ending 1848) averaged 
per head of the population two and two-third 
dollars ; to France and Belgium between sixty 
and seventy cents ; to Austria five cents, and a 
fraction less than one and three-fourth cents to 
the Russian Empire. 

Kossuth, in his letter to the Philadelphia mass 
meeting, says that Philadelphia is the first 
manufacturing city of the Union, but exports 
to foreign countries none of its proceeds. Why 
so ? Because the only markets open in Europe 
are not fitted to these products, whilst despotism 
closes the markets for which they are fitted. 
Restricted markets, for instance, are opened for 
highly finished cutlery, steam engines, or loco- 
motives, which England can supply at cheaper 



NOTES. 277 

rates ; but oppression and concomitant poverty 
prevent all trade with at least one hundred and 
ten millions of the population of Eastern Europe, 
who have shown that they would eagerly pur- 
chase and prefer American made axes, steam 
engines, and locomotives, to hew down their 
forests and traverse their level plains and mag- 
nificent watercourses, on which all enterprise 
now slumbers, the whole Russian Empire not 
having a fraction of the railway lines laid down 
in the small State of Belgium. 

As there is every reason why, but for the 
poverty attendant on bad government, the east- 
ern portion of the European continent should 
trade more largely with the United States than 
the western, it may fully be presumed that the 
overturn of despotism in these regions, inhabited 
by one hundred and twenty millions of people, 
and the establishment there of free government, 
would rapidly raise the commerce of the United 
States with those countries above the average 
of France and Belgium, which would give three 
or four fold its trade to the entire continent of 
Europe, or twenty-five times its whole present 
trade with Russia, Austria and Prussia. The 



278 NOTES, 

United States is, therefore, materially interested 
in those events. The philanthropic point of 
view is the same for all nations. It is proved, 
argues Kossuth, by an almost unvarying scale, 
that according as a people is more or less liber- 
ally governed, so is the quality of its food better 
or worse, and its material comforts augmented 
or diminished, and that coincident with this aug- 
mentation or diminution, human life is length- 
ened or abridged. The average of life in Russia 
is very little more than half of what it is in 
Great Britain, and follows in intermediate coun- 
tries precisely the ascending or descending scale 
of their liberality of government and physical 
well-being. 

It may, therefore, he concludes, fairly be pre- 
sumed that if the vast regions of Russia were 
blessed with free representative and responsible 
government, upwards of one million of human 
beings would not annually die who now perish 
the victims of a system. What war, he asks, 
was ever so bloody as the sacrifices required by 
such a Moloch ? 

In his address to the Swedes will be found 



NOTES. 279 

some account of the politics of the North, in 
his speeches at Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, &c, his 
views with regard to the state of France, Italy, 
and Europe generally. 



NATIONAL PROPERTY AND HUN- 
GARIAN LOAN. 

Mention has been made of the national pro- 
perty of Hungary, and of the charges on it, 
inclusive of the paper issued by the national 
government of Hungary. This national pro- 
perty consists of salt and other mines — princi- 
pally unworked or inefficiently worked — and of 
lands the most fertile in Europe, but chiefly un- 
cultivated. Though at present in the possession 
of the Austrian government, it hardly derives 
any revenue except from the actually productive 
mines, and cannot alienate this property. As 
the greatest portion of it yields no present re- 
turn, but on the contrary requires some invest- 
ment of capital to render it productive, no one 
will buy them unless a good title could be given, 



NOTES, 281 

or the permanency of Austrian rule insured. 
Even if they did yield a return the purchaser 
would be deterred by the example of the Aus- 
trian commanders, who can find no husbandmen 
to till the confiscated estates conferred upon 
them, unless through violence, and who then had 
their standing crops destroyed by fire, or their 
harvest burned in the barn. But no title is 
legal, or has ever, in the long run, held good in 
Hungary unless derived from the Diet ; and no 
one, even amongst the creatures of Austria, has 
sufficient faith in the present order of things to 
risk a shilling on the event. 

Of this national property, the mines are com- 
puted in round numbers, to be saleable (under a 
national government) for 125,000,000 dollars ; 
the lands for 100,000,000 dollars more. The 
whole is charged with something less than 
65,000,000 dollars, viz : 40,000,000 dollars com- 
pensation due to the landlords for the emanci- 
pation of the peasantry, and 35,000,000 dollars 
notes issued by Kossuth to carry on the war, 
from which deduct 10,000,000 dollars stupidly 
collected and burned by the Austrians. 

The land owners and holders of notes in Hun- 



282 NOTES. 

gary are, therefore, pecuniarily interested to the 
extent of 65,000,000 dollars in the restoration 
of a national government, and there remains 
160,000,000 dollars worth of national property 
on which Governor Kossuth bases the national " 
Hungarian loan in the United States. 



THE END. 



J. BILLING, 

PRINTER, AND STEREOTYPER. 

WOKING, SURREY. 



MAP N? I 

FIRST INVASION 




MAPN? I 

FIRST INVASION. 






WEam SJ^b^ 







N 



TRANSLVANIA 

teekler Magyars ^ :.Y 

Saxons ^ '^. M 




0iiUi * 



I ZIUST.AT BEC. OF CAMPA/GN . 
tiSkAUST.ATENO OF 00. 

rrn nu/t/. at beg .of do . 

VTT\ HUN.ATENO Of DO. 



MAP N?2 

SECOND INVASION 



AUSTRfANS. 
■* RUSS/A/VS. 
ED HUNGAft/ANS. 

ra 



\ IjOUUjL ■ 



^' 



M 



*&, 



< 





\Perczel H U ^1 




QJmixtz 




MAP N? 4 

HIRD INVASION 



G/ 



AUSTR/ANS. 


AT 


BEG. 


OF 


CAMPAIGN 


AUSTR/ANS. 


AT 


END. 


OF 


O? 


RUS'S/ANS 


AT 


BEC. 


OF 


O ° 


RUSS/ANS. 


AT 


END 


OF 


0? 



H || \\ HUNGARiANS. AT BEG OF CAMPAIGN 
I | V UN GAR /AN S. AT E/VD. OF D 




TlAP N? 4- 

THIRD INVASION. 

f=== j AUS rR/A/VS. *r BEG. OF CAMPAIGN 
f^^AUSTRIANS. *T £NO. OF O? 

r=5 RUSSIA"* AT BEC. OF D* 

^^^RUSS/A/VS. AT END OF D? 
^WW'WS. A? BEG OF CAMPAIGN 
r-r-ryiUNGAP/AN S 



GAL L I C I A 



•DaJJa. 



H 



4» 



"-4, 



**«• 



J; 

•Kaschaib. 







^. 



J*' 



Szobiolt. 



A 



***i» 



PaskievitckM J 



NA ' 



VeW 



^0W 




^ 



■ e ' •Ziufos. ' 



/ 



v» Hmc<ror<r( 



** 



^ 



vv» 



• Orsovco 



<& 



.. -o' ■ 










* A 



%*• %A %/ _* 




^*t 












y % 












^-v 



A 









</ 



-2- 



' * Y * ° ^ "o 






% ^ 






*< 












X 



o. 











& 









%■ $ 



$*. 



*%< 






« <5^ 










ayum 



■p 



WW Ml 

mm 



\\mi\um 
ml IMB1 






fflW 



irc 



is 



ii 



He 



Utf 



HHt 



IB 



HHflHUJH 



K 



jijic 



*« 



IP 



■II 

Iff Mil till JJIf Wlf 



fflf 



H» 



JBtffl/ft U 



m 



wMmmUKk 

iliiilXH 
ilSHiiSw 

HnHKlHi 

llini 

■ill 

Hli§iBlili 

11111 
51111 

1IB1 

llflil 



1 

■ 



JHw 



i 






IH 



LIBRARY 




wm® 



m 



